Computer Hardware/Software ( Basics ) Class 3.

Hi Friends,

Welcome back...In this Blog,
We will go through and understand about Hardware and Software ( the two components that everything in a computer can be categorized )

Hardware and Software are both completely different to each other, but are merged into each other.There is also a Firmware in addition to it, that I will discuss in a seperate blog later.
The best example to differentiate hardware and Software is below :
If we consider Human body as hardware THEN Soul is a software.
Though they are so immensely merged together, still the difference is huge!

HARDWARE:

Hardware is the actual component that our computer is made of. These are the things that we can see and touch such as a monitor, keyboard, CD Drive, CPU etc. Without the hardware a computer would not exist.

1.Physical parts of the computer are called hardware.
2.You can touch, see and feel hardware.
3.Hardware is constructed using physical materials or components.
4.If hardware is damaged, it is replaced with new one.
5.Hardware cannot be transferred from one place to another electronically through network.
6.Hardware needs a software for it to function.



Below are few pictures of examples of an hardware:











SOFTWARE :

 A software is so important, that any Hardware cannot be functional unless you have a software that is installed for that hardware.
Software includes every computer-related program that you cannot feel with the physical sense. for example, operating system, an anti-virus program, the web browser etc. 
All storage devices ( USB / CD / HDD etc) that keep data safe and store it in some electronic form are hardware while all data in itself is software.

Software is categorized into three different groups:
System software group - System software is software designed to operate and provide basic functionality to the computer hardware in order for it to be able to provide a platform for running application software.

Programming software group- Programming software includes programs or applications that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or support other programs and applications.

 Application software group - Application software is developed to perform any task that benefits from computation. It is a set of programs that allows the computer to perform a specific data processing job for the user.

NOW, that we know the basics of a Computer / Hardware / Software, we will leap ahead and get to know about the computer Starts ( boot process ), coming up in the next blog!





Thank you for reading!
-Omair Sharif.

If you have any questions, please put in the comments box below and submit, I will response at the earliest. Thank you again.

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