Keyboard
Aha, this is the gizmo that you will use most often, so don't dismiss it as unimportant stuff. So, which one to buy? That depends on your preference, mostly. There are heaps of keyboards in the market, some even come with a touchpad! But generally, common ones include the 101-keys keyboard, the Win95 keyboard (104 keys?) and the natural keyboard.
Whatever you do, don't get a click-keys keyboard. It'll drive you nuts! It did to me! And don't ever slam your keyboard when you lose a game if you value your keyboard's health. It'll really help increase your keyboard's life span.
Mouse & Pad
This is one more thing you'll keep your hands on for long periods of time.
Don't worry, they're not the critters that hide in sewers or teach ninja
turtles to fight. They're navigational tools that are especially useful if
you are running on a platform using GUI. They allow you to simply point and
click.
You can forget about Microsoft Mouse or anything with only 2 buttons 'cos they're mainly for MS applications only. Get a 3-button mouse. You don't want to get stuck using Microsoft software all the time, do you? OK, maybe you do, but it's always good to leave yourself an option. There are cordless mice out there, but I would leave that option out. (I had a bad experience with a cordless keyboard before.) Get one that fits your mouse port.
There are also trackballs that work in a way similar to an inverted mouse, but they don't seem to be taking off. They're mostly built into laptops, so I guess these devices are more suitable for people on the move. (It's impractical to carry around a mouse pad, OK?)
The mouse pad is optional, but if you cherish your little not-so-furry friend, get one, complete with a cleaning kit. Open the bottom of your mouse, and clean the rollers and ball often. Replace your mouse pad when it gets dirty.
Microphone
This is another optional item. It's good only if you wanna record something
(or chat on the net) and usually, you need a sound card to do that. Don't
know much about mikes except that they have hands-free type that you see those operators
in TV ads use. And mikes sometimes come with your sound card, so you can
forget about buying them, unless you're the real choosy type. My mike is just
standing in front of me for the sake of it.
Scanner
So, you wanna zap some cool pictures and save 'em on your disks, eh? Or maybe you wanna store those important documents on tape drives? In that case, scanners are for you!
These tools come in a few varieties, including hand-held, flatbed and sheet-fed. Sheet-fed scanners are rather new and are usually built into keyboards. However, they are still not very popular so we'll just leave 'em out for the moment.
Initially, hand-held scanners were made to meet the demands of home users 'cos flatbeds were rather expensive at the time. But recently, the prices of flatbeds have fallen by so much that it makes more sense to get them instead if you don't have a scanner yet. Some flatbeds even cost less than their hand-held cousins! Besides, you gotta have a really steady hand to zap something with hand-helds.
I'll leave the brand to you. The things you have to look at before buying a scanner are their TWAIN drivers, which links up with lots of your software. Then you have to check out their OCRs which help you zap documents into text format instead of graphics and save up lots of disk space. Screwy OCRs will have a tough time trying to differentiate graphics from text.
Joystick
Why is it that everywhere I turn, there must be someone who's a game maniac? OK, go for a digital Joystick. They are so much faster and better than th old analog ones. Whatever you do don't get the no-name brand five dollar joystick, they'll break after three days.
