Office of Information Technology at Ohio University

Office of Information Technology at Ohio University

Computer Peripherals

Networked Printers

If you are considering purchasing a network-capable printer for your department or program, we strongly recommend a unit that supports direct TCP/IP printing.

Desktop Printers

Printers designed to be connected to and used by a single computer fall into the following categories:

Laser Printers - color and black and white. Fast, high quality output. Very low per-page cost.

LED Printers - black and white only. Fast, high quality output for black and white, legal size or smaller pages. Very low per-page cost.

Ink Jet Printers - color and black and white. Speed, quality and maximum page size varies depending on model. Slow printing is the rule, and per-page costs can be quite high.

Specialty Printers - plotters, archival-quality photo ink jets, etc.

Scanners, Cameras, Removable Storage, Etc.

Most computer peripherals can be categorized by the way they connect to your computer:

USB - Easy to use, but can be slow. You will need at least Windows 98 or a newer Mac system to use USB.
Firewire (IEEE 1394) - Works well for digital video and external storage media. Firewire works best with Windows 2000, XP and newer Macs.
SCSI - popular standard for high-speed external hard drives, high-end scanners, and removable storage drives. Often requires an expansion card.
Serial/Parallel - mostly used for modems and printers. Some removable storage drives can use a parallel port, but they are quite slow.
Proprietary Interface Card - Special expansion card included with a peripheral and usually designed to work only with that peripheral. Usually works well after initial setup, but can cause hardware conflicts in some systems.