Hardware and Software
Every computer is made of two parts working together: hardware you can physically touch, and software that tells the hardware what to do.
What You'll Learn
- What hardware is
- What software is
- How hardware and software work together
Hardware: The Physical Parts
Hardware refers to the physical components of a computer: the CPU, memory, storage drive, screen, keyboard, and mouse are all hardware. If you can touch it, it's almost certainly hardware.
Software: The Instructions
Software is the set of instructions that tells hardware what to do. The operating system is software, and so is every app you open, from a web browser to a word processor. Software has no physical form -- it's stored as data on a storage drive and loaded into memory when needed.
Example
A word processor (software) runs on your laptop (hardware). Without the software, the hardware has nothing to do; without the hardware, the software has nothing to run on.
Key Concepts
Key Takeaways
- Hardware is the physical parts of a computer
- Software is the instructions that tell hardware what to do
- Neither hardware nor software is useful without the other
Knowledge Check
Which of these is an example of software?