We explain what the output is in various systems and their characteristics in computing, telecommunications and economics.
What is the output?
The word output is an Anglicism, that is, a loan from English (formed by out, "out of"; put, “Put”), commonly used in technical or specialized fields, such as synonymous of "output" or "result". Its opposite would be input, "input" or "income."
From a very general point of view, we speak of output to refer to the return or final product of some type of process, that is, to the final stage of a system determined (industrial, commercial, biological, etc.), in which the information exits the system. This can mean a good already processed, the result of a diagnosis or any other form of result: what is obtained in the end.
Like many other Anglicisms, its use in the Spanish language ends up being rather capricious, that is, unnecessary, since there are Hispanic terms to refer to the same thing. But the use of English as a technical and technological language throughout the world tends in general to impose its nuances and its lexicon.
Output in computing
In the field of computing or computing, we speak of output to refer to the process of extracting information from the system, as opposed to entering data (input).
For example, the peripherals of the computer based on those that allow information to be entered or extracted (or to do both), calling them “input”(Input), like the keyboard or the mouse; Y "exit”(Output), such as the monitor, printer or speakers: artifacts that materialize the information from the computer system for the user.
This concept is used in telecommunications, since almost all communication mechanisms today are computerized. Thus, for example, when talking on a cell phone, we are entering information through the microphone, which will be processed and transmitted by the phone system, then received and processed by the phone of our interlocutor, and finally expelled as recognizable sound waves by the ear.
In this example, then, we can consider output both to the electromagnetic transmission from our telephone to the other through the telephone network, and to the manifestation of our voice directly to the ear of our interlocutor. In other words, the telecommunications output is the emission of information ready for its reception.
Output in economics
In the economic field, the terms input and output are used in a sense similar to that described above, as part of the so-called “Input-Output Model” (or “Leontief Model”) developed by the Russian-American economist Wassily Leontief (1906- 1999), and which earned him the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1973.
According to this model, industries They present a certain interdependence that can be studied under the design of outputs and inputs, outputs and income, understanding that the output of one industry is the input of another. This perspective can be applied both to an entire country, as well as to one of its regions, and both to an entire industrial sector (automotive industry) and to the economic activities that compose it (tires, auto parts, etc.).
Those who apply the Leontief model elaborate IO (Input-Output) tables, which describe the exchange of goods between the industries involved, in annual intervals. These exchanges consist of sales, purchases, or physical goods, and allow the application of mathematical descriptors to the production of each industrial segment. By quantifying and measuring this exchange, the path of the economic circuit can be understood and evaluated.
Therefore, we will call output in this context the products end of a specific industry (or an entire industrial sector), which serve as input to others, or are directed to the consumer final, that is, the product of each one.