<programming, operating system> (I/O) Communication between a
computer and its users, its storage devices, other computers
(via a network) or the outside world. The devices the
computer uses to do this are called "peripherals". What
actually counts as I/O depends on what level of detail you are
considering, e.g. communication between processors would not
be considered I/O when considering a multiprocessor as a
single system.
Important aspects of I/O are throughput, latency, and
whether the communications is synchronous or asynchronous
(using some kind of buffer).
