Accounting
Equipment

An electronic calculator is a small, portable, often inexpensive electronic device used to perform both basic and complex operations of arithmetic. Modern calculators are more portable than most computers, though most PDAs or mobile phones are comparable in size to handheld calculators and may soon replace them.
The first solid state electronic calculator was created in the 1960s, building on the extensive history of tools such as the abacus, developed arou nd 2000 BC; and the mechanical calculator, developed in the 17th century. It was developed in parallel with the analog computers of the day.
Pocket sized devices became available in the 1970s, especially after the invention of the microprocessor developed by Intel for the Japanese calculator company
Busicom.

An adding machine was a class of mechanical calculator, usually specialized for bookkeeping calculations. In the United States, the earliest adding machines were usually built to read in dollars and cents. Adding machines were ubiquitous office equipment until they were phased out in favor of calculators in the 1980s and by personal computers beginning in about 1995. The older adding machines were rarely seen in American office settings by the year 2010.

A spreadsheet is an interactive computer application program for organization and analysis of information in tabular form. Spreadsheets developed as computerized simulations of paper accounting worksheets. The program operates on data represented as cells of an array, organized in rows and columns. Each cell of the array is a model–view–controller element that can contain either numeric or text data, or the results of formulas that automatically calculate and display a value based on the contents of other cells.
The user of the spreadsheet can make changes in any stored value and observe the effects on calculated values. This makes the spreadsheet useful for "what-if" analysis since many cases can be rapidly investigated without tedious manual recalculation. Modern spreadsheet software can h ave multiple interacting sheets, and can display data either as text and numerals, or in graphical form.

Calculating
Equipment

An electronic calculator is a small, portable, often inexpensive electronic device used to perform both basic and complex operations of arithmetic. Modern calculators are more portable than most computers, though most PDAs or mobile phones are comparable in size to handheld calculators and may soon replace them.
The first solid state electronic calculator was created in the 1960s, building on the extensive history of tools such as the abacus, developed arou nd 2000 BC; and the mechanical calculator, developed in the 17th century. It was developed in parallel with the analog computers of the day.
Pocket sized devices became available in the 1970s, especially after the invention of the microprocessor developed by Intel for the Japanese calculator company
Busicom.

The tabulating machine was an electrical device designed to assist in summarizing information and, later, accounting. Invented by Herman Hollerith, the machine was developed to help process data for the 1890 U.S. Census. It spawned a larger class of devices known as unit record equipment and the data processing industry.

The abacus (plural abaci or abacuses), also called a counting frame, is a calculating tool used primarily in parts of Asia for performing arithmetic processes. Today, abaci are often constructed as a bamboo frame with beads sliding on wires, but originally they were beans or stones moved in grooves in sand or on tablets of wood, stone, or metal. The abacus was in use centuries before the adoption of the written modern numeral system and is still widely used by merchants, traders and clerks in Asia, Africa, and elsewhere. The user of an abacus is called an abacist.

Communications
Equipment

A mobile phone (also known as a cellular phone, cell phone and a hand phone) is a device that can make and receive telephone calls over a radio link while moving around a wide geographic area. It does so by connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile phone operator, allowing access to the public telephone network.
By contrast, a cordless telephone is used only within the short range of a single, private base station.
In addition to telephony, modern mobile phones also support a wide variety of other services such as text messaging, MMS, email, Internet access, short-range wireless communications (infrared, Bluetooth), business applications, gaming and photography. Mobile phones that offer these and more general computing capabilities are referred to as smartphones.

A webcam is a video camera that feeds its images in real time to a computer or computer network, often via USB, ethernet, or Wi-Fi.
Their most popular use is the establishment of video links, permitting computers to act as videophones or videoconference stations. The common use as a video camera for the World Wide Web gave the webcam its name. Other popular uses include security surveillance, computer vision, video broadcasting, and for recording social videos .

A pager (often called a beeper) is a simple personal telecommunications device for short messages. A one-way numeric pager can only receive a message consisting of a few digits, typically a phone number that the user is then requested to call. Alphanumeric pagers are available, as well as two-way pagers that have the ability to send and receive email, numeric pages, and SMS messages.

Filing
Equipment

A hard disk drive (HDD; also hard drive, hard disk, or disk drive) is a data storage device used for storing and retrieving digital information from non-volatile memory (retaining its data even when powered off) in a random-access manner (data can be retrieved in any order rather than just sequentially). An HDD consists of one or more rigid ("hard") rapi dly rotating discs (platters) coated with magnetic material, with magnetic heads arranged on a moving actuator arm to read and write data to the surfaces.

A filing cabinet (or sometimes file cabinet in American English) is a piece of office furniture usually used to store paper documents in file folders.[1] In the most simple context, it is an enclosure for drawers in which items are stored. The two most common forms of filing cabinets are vertical files and lateral files. A vertical file cabinet has drawers that extend from the short side (typically 15 inches) of the cabinet. A lateral file cabinet has drawers that extend from the long side (various lengths) of the cabinet. T hese are also called side filers in Great Britain. There are also shelf files, which go on shelves. In the United States, file cabinets are usually built to accommodate 8.5 × 11 paper, and in other countries, filing cabinets are often designed to hold other sizes of paper, such as A4 paper.

A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and writes data on a magnetic tape. Magnetic tape data storage is typically used for offline, archival data storage.
Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and long archival stability.
A tape drive provides sequential access storage, unlike a disk drive, which provides random access storage. A disk drive can move to any position on the disk in a few milliseconds, but a tape drive must physically wind tape between reels to read any one particular piece of data. As a result, tape drives have very slow average seek times. For sequential access once the tape is positioned, however, tape drives can stream data very fast. For example, as of 2010 Linear Tape-Open (LTO) supported continuous data transfer rates of up to 140 MB/s, comparable to hard disk drives.

Paper
Handling

A collator is a piece of office equipment which facilitates the sorting of documents. It arranges the pages of a document in order, and is often attached to a copier that produces multiple document sets. For offices that handle a large volume of multi-page documents, a collator is an extremely useful tool, because it saves time and money. Hand collation can eat up a lot of time in a busy office, and it leaves room for error as the human operator tires. A number of different collator styles are available, depending on how the collator is to be used.
The term “collate” in reference to sorting documents first appeared in 1628. The word has several different meanings dependin g on the context, but usually suggests that documents are being compared and/or set in order. In printing, for example, collation includes the concept of printing a book in a set order and checking to confirm that the printing was done correctly. Scholars use collation to refer to comparing different documents, looking for areas of similarity or difference. Within the context of office document production, a document is considered to be collated when it has been put in readable order.

A paper shredder is a mechanical device used to cut paper into chad, typically either strips or fine particles. Government organizations, businesses, and private individuals use shredders to destroy private, confidential, or otherwise sensitive documents. Privacy experts often recommend that individuals shred bills, tax documents, credit card and bank account statements, and other items which could be used by thieves to commit fraud or identity theft.

Paper cutters, similar to those of today, were patented in 1844 and 1852 by Guillaume Massiquot. They have been around since the late 1830s, when, in 1837, Thirault built a model with a fixed blade to a flat surface. Since the middle of the 19th century considerable improvements have been made by Fomm and Krause of Germany,
Furnival in England, and Oswego and Seybold in the United States.[1]

Printing
Equipment

A barcode printer is a computer peripheral for printing barcode labels or tags that can be attached to physical objects. Barcode printers are commonly used to label cartons before shipment, or to label retail items with UPCs or EANs.
The most common barcode printers employ one of two different printing technologies. Direct thermal printers use a printhead to generate heat that causes a chemical reaction in specially designed paper that turns the paper black. Thermal transfer printers also use heat, but instead of reacting the paper, the heat melts a waxy or resin substance on a ribbon that runs over the label or tag material. The heat transfers ink from the ribbon to the paper. Direct thermal printers a re generally less expensive, but they produce labels that can become illegible if exposed to heat, direct sunlight, or chemical vapors.

Receipt (thermal) printers work by selectively heating regions of special heat-sensitive paper. Monochrome thermal printers are used in cash registers, ATMs, gasoline dispensers and some older inexpensive fax machines. Colours can be achieved with special papers and different temperatures and heating r ates for different colours; these coloured sheets are not required in black-and-white output. One example is the ZINK technology (Zero INK Technology)

Inkjet printing is a type of computer printing that creates a digital image by propelling droplets of ink onto paper. Inkjet printers are the most commonly used type of printer, [1] and range from small inexpensive consumer models to very large professional machines that can cost tens of thousands of dollars.

Recording
Equipment

Closed-circuit television (CCTV) is the use of video cameras to transmit a signal to a specific place, on a limited set of monitors. It differs from broadcast television in that the signal is not openly transmitted, though it may employ point to point (P2P), point to multipoint, or mesh wireless links. Though alm ost all video cameras fit this definition, the term is most often applied to those used for surveillance in areas that may need monitoring such as banks, casinos, airports, military installations, and convenience stores. Videotelephony is seldom called "CCTV" but the use of video in distance education, where it is an important tool, is often so called.

On a two-cassette answerphone, there is an outgoing cassette, usually a special endless loop tape on earlier machines (before the rise of microcassettes), which after a certain number of rings plays a pre-recorded message to the caller who rang the number. Once the message is complete, the outgoing cassette stops and the incomin g cassette starts recording the caller's message, and then stops once the line is cut.
Single-cassette answering machines contain the outgoing message at the beginning of the tape and incoming messages on the remaining space. They first play the announcement, then fast-forward to the next available space for recording, then record the caller's message. If there are many previous messages, fast-forwarding through them can cause a perceptible delay.

A time clock, sometimes known as a clock card machine or punch clock or time recorder, is a mechanical (or electronic) timepiece used to assist in tracking the hours an employee of a company worked. In regards to mechanical time clocks this was accomplished by inserting a heavy paper card, called a timesheet, into a slot on the time clock. When the time card hit a contact at the rear of the slot, the machine would print day and time information on the card. This allowed a timekeeper to have an official record of the hours an employee worked to calculate and pay an employee.

Reprographic
Equipment

A photocopier (also known as a copier or copy machine) is a machine that makes paper copies of documents and other visual images quickly and cheaply. Most current photocopiers use a technology called xerography, a dry process using heat. (Copiers can also use other technologies such as ink jet, but xerography is standard for office copying.)

Risograph is a high-speed digital printing system manufactured by the Riso Kagaku Corporation and designed mainly for high-volume photocopying and printing. Increasingly,
Risograph machines have been commonly referred to as a RISO Printer-Duplicator, due to their common usage as a network printer as well as a stand-alone duplicator. When printing or copying multiple quantities (generally more than 20) of the same original, it is typically far less expensive per page than a conventional photocopier, laser printer, or inkjet printer. Printing historian Rick O'Connor has debated that the original, and thus correct, name for the device is RISS O and not RISO. This debate spawns from the notion that an extra 'S' is added because the inventor's wife found it more pleasing to the ears.

Offset printing is a commonly used printing technique in which the inked image is transferred (or "offset") from a plate to a rubber blanket, then to the printing surface. When used in combination with the lithographic process, which is based on the repulsion of oil and water, the offset technique employs a flat (planographic) image carrier on which the image to be printed obtains ink from ink rollers, while the non-printing area attracts a water-based film (called "fountain solution"), keeping the non-printing areas ink-free.

Scanning
Equipment

A barcode reader (or barcode scanner) is an electronic device for reading printed barcodes. Like a flatbed scanner, it consists of a light source, a lens and a light sensor translating optical impulses into electrical ones. Additionally, nearly all barcode readers contain decoder circuitry analyzing the barcode's image data provided by the sensor and sending the barcode's content to the scanner's output port.

In computing, an image scanner—often abbreviated to just scanner—is a device that optically scans images, printed text, handwriting, or an object, and converts it to a digital image. Common examples found in offices are variations of the desktop (or flatbed) scanner where the document is placed on a glass window for scanning.
Hand-held scanners, where the device is moved by hand, have evolved from text scanning "wands" to 3D scanners used for industrial design, reverse engineering, test and measurement, orthotics, gaming and other applications. Mechanically driven scanners that move the document are typically used for large -format documents, where a flatbed design would be impractical.
Modern scanners typically use a charge-coupled device (CCD) or a Contact Image Sensor (CIS) as the image sensor, whereas older drum scanners use a photomultiplier tube as the image sensor. A rotary scanner, used for high-speed document scanning, is another type of drum scanner, using a CCD array instead of a photomultiplier. Other types of scanners are planetary scanners, which take photographs of books and documents, and 3D scanners, for producing three-dimensional models of objects.

Biometrics (or biometric authentication)[note 1] refers to the identification of humans by their characteristics or traits. Biometrics is used in computer science as a form o f identification and access control.[1] It is also used to identify individuals in groups that are under surveillance.

Multimedia
Equipment

A digital camera (or digicam) is a camera that takes video or still photographs by recording images on an electronic image sensor. Most cameras sold today are digital,[1] and digital cameras are incorporated into many devices ranging from PDAs and mobile phones (called camera phones) to vehicles.

An image projector is an optical device that projects an image (or moving images) onto a surface, commonly a projection screen.
Most projectors creates an image by shining a light through a small transparent image, but some newer types of projectors can project the image directly, by using lasers. A virtual retinal display, or retinal projector, is a projector that projects an image directly on the retina instead of using an external projection screen.

A computer is a general purpose device that can be programmed to carry out a finite set of arithmetic or logical operations. Since a sequence of operations can be readily changed, the computer can solve more than one kind of problem.
Conventionally, a computer consists of at least one processing element, typically a central processing unit (CPU) and some form of memory. The processing element carries out arithmetic and logic operations, and a sequencing and control unit that can change the order of operations based on stored information. Peripheral devices allow information to be retrieved from an external source, and the result of operations saved and retrieved.

Mailing
Equipment

Franking Machine is a device that prints the equivalent of a Royal Mail stamp onto a label, envelope or postcard. Most Franking Machines can p rocess many items of post at once.
This may seem trivial, but if you are involved in a business that sends physical mail, then a F ranking Machine will no doubt save you time and money.

Impulse heat sealers- have heating elements (one or two) of Nichrome placed between a resilient synthetic rubber and a release surface of film or fabric. The heating elements are not continuously heated; heat is generated only when current flows. When the materials are placed in the heat sealer, they are he ld in place by pressure. An electric current heats the heating element for a specified time to create the required temperature. the Jaws hold the material in place after the heat i s stopped, sometimes with cooling water: this allows the material to fuse before stress can be applied.

A paper knife or letter opener is a knife-like object used to open envelopes or to slit uncut pages of books. Electric versions are also available, which work by using motors to slide the envelopes across a blade. These have the advantage of being able to handle a greater volume of envelopes, but the blade can slice into the contents o f the envelope and damage them.