The display is usually considered to include the screen or projection surface and the device that produces the information on the screen. In some computers, the display is packaged in a separate unit called a monitor . In other computers, the display is integrated into a unit with the processor and other parts of the computer. The terms display and monitor are often used interchangably.
Most computer displays use analog signals as input to the display image creation mechanism.
This requirement and the need to continually refresh the display image mean that the computer also needs a display or video adapter . Today, most desktop displays provide color. Notebook and smaller computers sometimes have a less expensive monochrome display. Displays can usually operate in one of several display modes that determine how many bits are used to describe color and how many colors can be displayed. A display that can operate in SuperVGA mode can display up to 16,777,216 colors because it can process a 24-bit long description of a pixel .