Hardware Accessories

• Modems

- Modems allow you to communicate with other computers using a phone line. Modem speeds are in bits per second (14.4, 28.8 and 56 thousand bits per second are standard).

• CD-ROM Drives

- A CD-ROM drive is a high capacity storage device which lets you read data from the disk, but not write data back. The speed of the drive (how fast the CD platter spins) is measured in multiples from the first generation drives. New drives are up to 24X (or 24 times the first drives), but while the CD spins faster, it is not really 24 times faster in actual output.

• Printers

- There are different types of printers (laser, ink jet, dot matrix) with differing quality of output. They are measured in dpi (dots per inch) and ppm (pages per minute), the higher the better.

• Scanners

- Scanners "digitize" printed material (like photos and graphics) and save it to a graphic file format (like .GIF or .JPG) for display on the computer.