A keyboard is one of the most important peripherals of a computer setup. Whether you are using a basic office desktop or even a laptop, without a keyboard, it is basically impossible to do all the tasks.
A keyboard is connected to a computer via a USB or PS/2 cable that allows the user to input their data into the computer which is generally in a text format.
As a computer user, it is essential to know whether the keyboard is an input or an output device and why it falls in that category.
What Is A Keyboard?
A Keyboard is an electronic device that is categorized under computer peripherals and used to create or write letters, numbers, and symbols digitally.
It is connected to a computer externally and therefore, doesn’t belong to the essential components of a computer.
A keyboard features several buttons organized in a format that is easier to access and may contain several other additional buttons for multimedia and ease of access to certain computer functions.
Is Keyboard An Input Or Output Device?
As the keyboard is used to input letters, numbers, and symbols digitally on a text file or a form, the keyboard is recognized as an Input device .
An Input device is something that takes the user input and sends it to the processor for the processing of data. The processed data is then decoded and received from an output device such as a monitor, speaker, printer, etc.
When a key is pressed on a keyboard, the computer registers the action and you see your output on your screen.
A keyboard is connected via a wire to the motherboard. A motherboard has a dedicated I/O circuitry on its PCB from where it sends the electrical signals to the CPU to identify the input and process the data.
Types Of Keyboards
A Keyboard can be classified into different categories based on different factors. The most common one is the type of connection.
A keyboard can be classified into two types based on the connection it makes with a computer. A keyboard can be Wired or Wireless where the wired keyboard establishes a connection via a cable connection to the motherboard and a wireless keyboard uses Bluetooth.
Keyboards can be categorized on the basis of keys layout too. There are 3 types of keyboards based on the layout of the keys. These are the QWERTY, AZERTY, and QWERTZ where QWERTY is the most commonly used layout across the world.
Keyboards can be further categorized based on the number of keys where it can be a full 104-key keyboard, a 60% or a 75% keyboard. It can also be classified into Modular and Non-Modular keyboards where you can join or detach two parts of a keyboard in the former.
If keyboards are categorized based on the types of switches, we have Mechanical and Membrane keyboards each having its own mechanism for actuation.
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