HARDWARE Hardware is best described as a device, such as a hard drive, that is physically connected to the computer or something that can be physically touched. ROM, computer display monitor, printer, and video card are all examples of computer hardware. COMPARISON CHART BETWEEN HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE Hardware:- . A system software acts as an interface between hardware and an application software. Whenever a user wants to do a specific job, he gives commands to application software. These commands are delivered to application software via system software. All of the system software provide same kind of services. An operating system is a type of system software.
Hardware and software work together in digital devices and systems to provide computerized functionality. Hardware includes the physical components, such as the motherboard, chips, memory, and hard drives, while software includes the programs. Though both are most often associated with computers, software also runs on other hardware, such as cellular phones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) units, medical equipment, and air traffic control systems. Modern cash registers are also computerized with software to better organize sales-related issues like inventory, tax, and coupon discounts.
Hardware and software are constantly improving in a kind of leapfrog fashion. The former is most often the bottleneck when it comes to data transfer speeds, or how fast a program can work. Therefore, as hardware improves, it becomes capable of running more robust programs. Old hardware from just ten years ago may not run current software, as the programs might be designed to take advantage of hardware in ways that older pieces of equipment cannot support.
For this reason, when shopping for software, the buyer should check the specifications for recommended minimal hardware requirements. The central processing unit (CPU) of a computer is nearly always mentioned, as this hardware is responsible for the overall speed of the computer, generally speaking. The amount of Random Access Memory (RAM) is another factor, and graphics capability or video card requirements might also be mentioned.
Key difference: Hardware is the physical aspect of the computer, the thing we can touch, such as monitor, hard drive, etc. Software is the non-physical aspect which includes the operating system, applications, programs, etc.
A computer is mainly divided into two parts, the hardware and the software. All of the computer’s components fall under either of these categories. The hardware is the physical aspect of the computer, things that we can touch, while, software is the non-physical aspect. The easiest way to distinguish among the two is that anything we see when the computer is off is the hardware, while anything we see on the monitor is the software.
Hardware is the actual components that your computer is made of, such as the monitor, keyboard, CPU, etc. Without hardware, the computer would not exist and the software would have nothing to run on. The software, on the other hand, is any program that you load onto a computer, such as the operating system, the server, the web browser, media player, etc. It is the code and instructions that tells the computer hardware how to operate. This code can be viewed and executed using the hardware. The hardware serves as the delivery system for software solutions. It gives something for the software to operate on.
A computer can run without installed software. However, if an operating system or interpreter is not found, the computer would either generate an error or sit at a black screen. The software enables a computer to perform a specific task. Additional programs give the computer additional abilities.
Once installed, the hardware of a computer is infrequently changed, as it rarely fails. However, it does wear out over time and tends to have increasing failures at the last stage of its life. Software, on the other hand, does not wear out over time and does not have an increasing failure rate over its life. It does tend to become outdated, but it is readily created, modified, updated or erased on the computer.
There are various types of hardware, including input devices – which are used to input data into the computer; output devices – which allow the data to be seen; data storage – which store data; data ports – which allow connectivity between the computer and other devices; and the computer care – which is the base unit and includes the base components essential for the computer to run.
Software is categorized into three different types: system software, programming software and application software. 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 includes programs or applications that software developers use to create, debug, maintain, or support other programs and applications. 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. Example of the different types of hardware and software are given below:
Types of Hardware:
- Input devices – keyboard, image scanner, microphone, pointing device, graphics tablet, joystick, light pen, mouse, touchpad, touchscreen, trackball, webcam
- Output devices – monitor, printer, speakers
- Removable data storage - optical disc drive (CD-RW, DVD+RW), floppy disk, memory card, USB flash drive
- Computer case - central processing unit (CPU), hard disk, motherboard, network interface controller, power supply, random-access memory (RAM), sound card, video card
- Data ports - Ethernet firewire, parallel port, serial port, universal serial bus (USB)
Types of Software:
- System software - device drivers, operating systems, servers, utilities, window systems
- Programming software - compilers, debuggers, interpreters, linkers, text editors
- Application software - accounting software, office suites, databases, media players, web browser