Explore the vast range of titles available.

When people distil computerised data processing down to its very essence, they require only two things of the computers‐input and output, or I/O. This chapter attempts to demystify this complexity via an overview of I/O and the computer architecture behind it. It begins with a short history of interfaces and their related protocols, and examines various I/O schemes involving universal asynchronous receiver/transmitters (UARTs), Universal Serial Bus (USB), Small Computer Systems Interface (SCSI), Integrated Drive Electronics (IDE)/Parallel Advanced Technology Attachment (PATA), Serial Advanced Technology Attachment (SATA), I2S, I2C, SPI, GPIO and others. Most of them provide rather elegant solutions to specific I/O needs that are defined and explained. The concept of computer I/O devices, also called computer peripherals, consists of devices that accept data input, output processed data, or perform both in and out functions. The chapter concludes with a Raspberry Pi‐specific section on using general purpose input output (GPIO).