Input & Output

Magnatic Ink Character Recognition (MICR)

It is a technique that enables special characters printed in magnetic ink to be read and input rapidly to a computer. MICR is beneficial and it works efficiently in banking because magnetic-ink characters can be machine-read as it more accurate compare to human reading or other optical character recognition (OCR) systems, and are therefore it is ideal for marking and identifying the account and sort code numbers on cheques.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

It is also known as OCR. It is the mechanical or electronic translation of images of handwritten, typewritten or printed text (usually captured by a scanner) into machine-editable text.
OCR is a field of research in pattern recognition, artificial intelligence and computer vision. Though academic research in the field continues, the focus on OCR has shifted to implementation of proven techniques.

Optical Mark Recognition (OMR)

Optical Mark Recognition (OMR) is the technology of electronically extracting intended data from marked fields, such as checkboxes and fill-in fields, on printed forms. It is different from OCR by the fact that a recognition engine is not required. The image is required to have high contrast and an easily-recognizable or irrelevant shape.

Dot Matrix Printer

A type of printer that produces characters and illustrations by striking pins against an ink ribbon to print closely spaced dots in the appropriate shape. Dot-matrix printers are relatively expensive and do not produce high-quality output. However, they can print to multi-page forms (that is, carbon copies), something laser and ink-jet printers cannot do.

Plotter

A device that draws pictures on paper based on commands from a computer. Plotters differ from printers in that they draw lines using a pen. As a result, they can produce continuous lines, whereas printers can only stimulate lines by printing a closely spaced series of dots. Multicolor plotters use different-colored pens to draw different colors. In general, plotters are considerably more expensive than printers. They are used in engineering applications where precision is mandatory.

Photo Printer

A printer specialized for smaller prints. When first introduced in the mid-1990s, photo printers used dye sublimation for high quality printing because inkjet printing was not quite up to par. Since then, inkjet technology has greatly improved, and most photo printers are inkjets. Epson, Canon and HP are major players in this market. See digital camera, phot scanner, inkjet printer and dye sublimation printer.

Portable Printer

A portable computer is a personal computer that is designed to be easily transported and relocated, but is larger and less convenient to transport than a notebook computer. The earliest PCs designed for easy transport were called portables. As the size and weight of most portables decreased, they became known as laptop computer and later as notebook computer. Today, larger transportable computers continue to be called portable computers. Most of these are special-purpose computers - for example, those for use in industrial environments where they need to be moved about frequently.

Fax Machine

It is using affordable devices operating over the telephone network. Senders are able to send document to large distances receiver instantly. Yet it has disadvantages, in quality have relegated it to a position beneath email as the prevailing form of electronic document transfer except where the legal status of a sent fax and its accompanying sending report are desired.

Multifunctional Device

Multifunction Device (MFD), is an office machine which incorporates the functionality of multiple devices in one, so as to have a smaller footprint in a home or small business setting, or to provide centralized document management/distribution/production in a large-office setting.

Internet telephones

Internet telephone is the use of the Internet rather than the traditional telephone company and rate structure to exchange spoken or other telephone information. Since access to the Internet is available at local phone connection rates, an international or other long-distance call will be much less expensive than through the traditional call arrangement.