The Display and Mouse

When using the computer one often needs to select one (or more) items that are displayed on the display unit. For example, there may be a list of programs that can be run on the display so that selecting one of them will cause it to run.

On some advanced (and expensive) computers, the display unit is sensitive to touch so that one can simply touch the item on the screen to be selected. However, on most computers the mouse or some other pointing device is used.

The screen of the display unit shows text and pictures. It also has a cursor. This is often just an arrow , sometimes an hourglass and sometimes just a vertical line.