A touch screen is a monitor with some type of sensing device across its face that
detects the location and duration of contact, usually by a finger or stylus. All
touch screens then supply this contact information to the PC as though it were a
click event from a mouse. Touch screens are used in situations for which conventional
mouse/keyboard input is either impossible or impractical.Here are a
few places you’ll see touch screens at work:
• Information kiosks
• PDAs
• Point-of-sale systems
• Tablet PCs
Touch screens can be separated into two groups: built-in screens like those in
PDAs, and stand-alone touch screen monitors like those used in many pointof-
sale systems. From a technician’s standpoint, you can think of a stand-alone
touch screen as amonitor with a built-in mouse.All touch screens will have a separate
USB or PS/2 port for the “mouse” part of the device, along with drivers that
you install just as you would for any USB mouse.