Hardware and Software PDF

Hardware and Software Hardware: The physical devices that make up a computer Software: The programs that run on a computer Copyright © 2018 Pearson Education, Inc.  Software Everything the computer does is controlled by software General c...

Hardware and Software Hardware: The physical devices that make up a computer Software: The programs that run on a computer Copyright © 2018 Pearson Education, Inc.  Software Everything the computer does is controlled by software General categories: Application software System software Copyright © 2018 Pearson Education, Inc.  Application Software Application software: programs that make computers useful for every day tasks Examples: word processing, email, games, and Web browsers Copyright © 2018 Pearson Education, Inc.  Software (cont’d.) System software: programs that control and manage basic operations of a computer Operating system: controls operations of hardware components (Windows, OS) Utility Program: performs specific task to enhance computer operation or safeguard data (Virus scanners, compression programs, etc) Software development tools: used to create, modify, and test software programs (compilers) Copyright © 2018 Pearson Education, Inc.  Programs Program: set of instructions that a computer follows to perform a task Commonly referred to as Software Programmer: person who can design, create, and test computer programs Also known as software developer Copyright © 2018 Pearson Education, Inc.  Hardware Typical major components: Central processing unit (CPU) Main memory Secondary storage devices Input and output devices Copyright © 2018 Pearson Education, Inc.  The CPU Central processing unit (CPU): the part of the computer that actually runs programs Most important component Without it, cannot run software Used to be a huge device Microprocessors: CPUs located on small chips Copyright © 2018 Pearson Education, Inc.  Main Memory Main memory: where computer stores a program while program is running, and data used by the program Also known as Random Access Memory or RAM CPU is able to quickly access data in RAM Memory used for temporary storage while program is running Contents are erased when computer is off Copyright © 2018 Pearson Education, Inc.  Secondary Storage Devices Secondary storage: can hold data for long periods of time Programs normally stored here and loaded to main memory when needed Types of secondary memory Disk drive: magnetically encodes data onto a spinning circular disk Solid state drive: faster than disk drive, no moving parts, stores data in solid state memory Flash memory: portable, no physical disk Optical devices: data encoded optically (CD) Copyright © 2018 Pearson Education, Inc.  Input Devices Input: data the computer collects from people and other devices Input device: component that collects the data Examples: keyboard, mouse, touchscreen, scanner, camera Disk drives can be considered input devices because they load programs into the main memory Copyright © 2018 Pearson Education, Inc.  Output Devices Output: data produced by the computer for other people or devices Can be text, image, audio, or bit stream Output device: formats and presents output Examples: video display, printer Disk drives and USB drives can be considered output devices because data is sent to them to be saved Copyright © 2018 Pearson Education, Inc.  Hardware Meets Software Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage can be considered the parents of computer science. He invented the hardware and she has gone down in history as the first programmer (The US Defense Department’s computer program is called Ada). Copyright © 2018 Pearson Education, Inc.