Hardware And Software Flashcards
Hardware
Hardware describes the electrical or electro-mechanical parts of a computer system
These comprise the physical, tangible parts of the computer and its input, output and storage devices
Software
Software comprises all of the programs that make the computer function
2 types of software
System software
Application software
Types of system software
Operating systems
Utility programs
Library programs
Translators
Types of application software
General purpose
Special purpose
System software purpose
System software is required to run and manage the computer’s hardware and application programs
Examples of system software in action
- allocation of jobs to processor
- peripheral management
- maintaining security and checking for viruses
- program code to machine code
Role of Operating system
serves as a middle-man for communication between the computer’s hardware and software
Examples of OS
Windows
Mac OS
Linux
Android
Utility software
Some utility software is designed to analyse, configure,optimise or maintain a computer system
Additional common tasks performed by utilities
Virus checkers
Automatic backup and restore
File compression software
Libraries
A library is a collection of pre-compiled routines that can be used by other programs
What is machine code
Machine code is the lowest level of instruction comprising pure binary
- All computer instructions need to be converted into machine code
what is a translator
A translator is used to translate code written in assembly language or other high level code into machine-code
what are the 3 types of translators
Assembles
Compilers
Interpreters