Definition: I/O is an abbreviation of Input / Output and refers to the transfer of data to or from an application.
Input devices are usually but not always character input devices such as the keyboard, mouse or keyboard. They can also include stream devices like a disk. Output devices include the screen or a printer or anything plugged into a PC's port.
Some devices can only send or receive - try sending data to a mouse! If the device can do both input and output (say another PC attached to a serial or parallel cable), it is termed bidirectional.
Glossary:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y ZExamples:
As the floppy disk drive was broken, I used a serial cable plugged into my old pc as an I/O device and tranferred all my source code across.
