Hardware and

Software
COMPUTER

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Hardware and Software

Hardware
Hardware refers to the physical and tangible parts of a computer system, i.e. the components that can be
seen and touched by user. Hardware can be taken as the body of a computer consisting different logically and
physically operational parts for different functions.

Following can be examples of Hardware:

 Input devices − keyboard, mouse, etc.

 Output devices − printer, monitor, etc.

 Secondary storage devices − Hard disk, CD, DVD, etc.

 Internal components − CPU, motherboard, RAM, etc.

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Relationship between Hardware and Software

 Both Hardware and Software are mutually dependent on each other. Both of them should work in
collaboration in order to make a computer produce a useful output.

 Software cannot be used without equivalent hardware.

 Hardware in absence of a set of programs to operate upon cannot perform any useful operations and is
useless.

 To get a particular task or operation executed by the computer, relevant software must be loaded into the
hardware.

 Hardware is a one-time investment.

 Development of Software is comparatively expensive and is a prolonged expense.

 Various software applications can be installed on a hardware to perform various tasks.

 A software works as an interface between the hardware and its user.

 If the hardware can be considered as the 'heart' of a computer system, then the software is considered as
its 'soul'. Both of them are complementary to each other.

Motherboard
The motherboard works as a single platform to assemble all of the parts of a computer system together. It
connects the primary components like CPU, memory, hard drives, and the secondary components like
optical drives, video card, sound card, and other ports and expansion cards directly or via cables. It acts as
the backbone of a computer.

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Features of Motherboard
A motherboard comes with various features as follows:

 Motherboard varies very much in supporting different types of devices and components.

 Motherboard provides provision for a single type of CPU and a multiple number of memories.

 Devices like video cards, hard disks, sound cards have to be compatible with the particular motherboard
to integrate with the rest of the components.

 Motherboards, cases, and power supplies should be compatible to work properly in collaboration with
the other components.

Popular Manufactures
Following are few of the popular manufacturers in the market of the motherboard:

 Intel

 ASUS

 A Open

 ABIT

 Bio star

 Gigabyte

 MSI

Description of Motherboard
 The motherboard is installed inside the case or cabinet and is securely attached using small screws. Moth-
erboard consists of ports to connect all of the internal hardware components. It has provision for a single
socket for CPU, whereas for memory, generally one or more slots are available. Motherboards contain
ports to attach input devices like the floppy drive, hard drive, and optical drives via ribbon cables. Moth-
erboard carries fans for heat dissipation and a special component called SMPS (switched-mode power
supply) designed for power supply.

 It contains a peripheral card slot in front of the motherboard which can be used to attach output/input
devices like video cards, sound cards, and other expansion cards to the motherboard.

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 On the other side, motherboards carry a variety of ports to connect the important input/output devices
like monitor, printer, mouse, keyboard, speaker, and network cables. Motherboards also consists ad-
vanced technology known as USB ports, which allow compatible devices to be connected in plug-in/plug-
out fashion. For example, pen drive, digital cameras, etc.

Ports
In terms of computers, a port is a physical docking socket using which an external or internal device can be
connected to the motherboard. It may also be programmatic docking point which can be used for flow of in-
formation from a program to the computer or over the Internet.

Characterstics of Ports
Following are the characteristics of a port:

 Most of the external devices are connected to the system through cables and ports.

 Ports are sockets on the motherboard of the system into which the device itself or the cable of external
device is plugged in.

 Examples: mouse, keyboard, monitor, microphone, speakers, etc.

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Serial Port
 Useful for external modems and older version of computer mouse

 Two possible versions: 9 pin, 25 pin model

 Data travels at the speed of 115 kilobits per second

Parallel Port
 Used to attach scanners and printers

 Also known as printer port

 25 pin model

 IEEE 1284-compliant Centronics port

PS/2 Port
 Used to connect earlier version computer keyboard and mouse

 Also known as mouse port

 Most of the earlier version computers provide two PS/2 port, each for the mouse and keyboard

 IEEE 1284-compliant Centronics port

Universal Serial Bus (USB) Port

 It can be used to attach variety of external USB devices like external hard disk, printer, scanner, mouse,
keyboard, etc.

 It was introduced in 1997.

 Most of the newer versions of computers are equipped with two USB ports as minimum.

 Data travels at the speed of 12 megabits per seconds.

 USB compliant devices can receive power from a USB port.

VGA Port
 It is used to connect monitor to a computer's video card.

 It consists 15 holes.

 It resembles the serial port connector. However, serial port connector consists pins, VGA port consists
holes.
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Power Connector
 Three-pronged plug.

 It connects to the computer's power socket available in SMPS that plugs into a power bar or wall socket.

FireWire Port
 It can transfer huge amount of data at comparatively very fast speed.

 It can connect camcorders and video equipment to the computer system.

 Data flows at the speed of 400 to 800 megabits per seconds.

 Invented by Apple.

 It has 3 variants: 4-Pin FireWire 400 connector, 6-Pin FireWire 400 connector, and 9-Pin FireWire 800 con-
nector.

Modem Port
 It is used to connect a PC's modem to the telephone network.

Ethernet Port
 Used to connect computer system to a network and high speed Internet.

 Connects the network cable to the system.

 This port is available on the Ethernet Card.

 Data travels at the speed of 10 megabits to 1000 megabits per seconds, which depends upon the network
bandwidth.

Game Port
 Used to connect a joystick to a PC

 It is now replaced by USB

Digital Video Interface, DVI Port

 Used to connect digital signal accepting Flat panel LCD monitor to the computer's high-end video graphic
cards.

 Very popular now a days among video card manufacturers.

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Sockets
 Sockets usually connects the microphone (mic) and speakers to the sound card on the motherboard.

Computer Software
Software is a collection of instructions and data that tell a computer how to work. This is in contrast
to physical hardware, from which the system is built and actually performs the work. In computer
science and software engineering, computer software is all information processed by computer systems,
including programs and data. Computer software includes computer programs, libraries and related non-
executable data, such as online documentation or digital media. Computer hardware and software require
each other and neither can be realistically used on its own.

A set of instructions that achieve a single outcome are called program or procedure. Many programs
functioning together to do a task make a software.

For example, a word-processing software enables the user to create, edit and save documents. A web browser
enables the user to view and share web pages and multimedia files. There are two categories of software −

 System Software

 Application Software

 Utility Software

Let us discuss them in detail.

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System Software
Software required to run the hardware parts of the computer and other application software are
called system software. System software acts as interface between hardware and user applications. An
interface is needed because hardware devices or machines and humans speak in different languages.

Machines understand only binary language i.e. 0 (absence of electric signal) and 1 (presence of electric signal)
while humans speak in English, French, German, Tamil, Hindi and many other languages. English is the pre-
dominant language of interacting with computers. Software is required to convert all human instructions into
machine understandable instructions. And this is exactly what system software does.

Based on its function, system software is of three types −

 Operating System

 Language Processor

 Device Drivers

Operating System
System software that is responsible for functioning of all hardware parts and their interoperability to carry
out tasks successfully is called operating system (OS). OS is the first software to be loaded into computer
memory when the computer is switched on and this is called booting. OS manages a computer’s basic
functions like storing data in memory, retrieving files from storage devices, scheduling tasks based on
priority, etc.

10 Best Operating Systems In Market

1. MS-Windows

2. Ubuntu

3. Mac OS

4. Fedora

5. Solaris

6. Free BSD

7. Chrome OS

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8. CentOS

9. Debian

10. Deepin

Language Processor
As discussed earlier, an important function of system software is to convert all user instructions into machine
understandable language. When we talk of human machine interactions, languages are of three types −

 Machine-level language − This language is nothing but a string of 0s and 1s that the machines can
understand. It is completely machine dependent.

 Assembly-level language − This language introduces a layer of abstraction by

defining mnemonics. Mnemonics are English like words or symbols used to denote a long string of 0s
and 1s. For example, the word “READ” can be defined to mean that computer has to retrieve data from
the memory. The complete instruction will also tell the memory address. Assembly level language
is machine dependent.

 High level language − This language uses English like statements and is completely independent of
machines. Programs written using high level languages are easy to create, read and understand.

Program written in high level programming languages like Java, C++, etc. is called source code. Set of
instructions in machine readable form is called object code or machine code. System software that converts
source code to object code is called language processor. There are three types of language interpreters−

 Assembler − Converts assembly level program into machine level program.

 Interpreter − Converts high level programs into machine level program line by line.

 Compiler − Converts high level programs into machine level programs at one go rather than line by line.

Device Drivers
System software that controls and monitors functioning of a specific device on computer is called device
driver. Each device like printer, scanner, microphone, speaker, etc. that needs to be attached externally to
the system has a specific driver associated with it. When you attach a new device, you need to install its
driver so that the OS knows how it needs to be managed.

Many parts of a computer need drivers, and common examples are:

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 Computer printers.

 Graphic cards.

 Modems.

 Network cards.

 Sound cards.

Application Software
 A software that performs a single task and nothing else is called application software. Application software
are very specialized in their function and approach to solving a problem.

 Application programs interact with systems software; systems software then directs computer hardware
to perform the necessary tasks.

 So a spreadsheet software can only do operations with numbers and nothing else. A hospital management
software will manage hospital activities and nothing else. Here are some commonly used application
software −

 Word processing

 Spreadsheet

 Presentation

 Database management

 Multimedia tools

Utility Software
Application software that assist system software in doing their work is called utility software. Thus utility
software is actually a cross between system software and application software. Examples of utility software
include −
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 Antivirus software

 Disk management tools

 File management tools

 Compression tools

 Backup tools

Middleware software
 Middleware is software that enables one or more kinds of communication or connectivity between two or
more applications or application components in a distributed network.

 Common middleware examples include database middleware, application server middleware, message-
oriented middleware, web middleware, and transaction-processing monitors.

Shareware software
Shareware software is a software that are freely distributed to users on trial basis. There is a time
limit inbuilt in the software ( for example- free for 30 days or 2 months). As the time limit gets over, it will be
deactivated. To use it after time limit, you have to pay for the software.

Users prefer shareware because of following reasons –

 Available free of cost

 helps to know about the product before buying it

Some examples of freeware software are –

 Adobe acrobat 8 professional

 PHP Debugger 2.1.3.3

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 Winzip

 Getright

Shareware are of following types:

 Adware – Contains ads to generate revenue for the developers

 Donationware – payment is optional

 Nagware – reminds user to purchase the license or the software

 Freemium – free for non-premium but of cost for premium features

 Demoware – demonstration version. It is further classified as crippleware and trialware.

 Crippleware – Some features are disabled under time-limit

 Trialware – all features are available under time-limit

Freeware software
Freeware software is a software that is available free of cost. An user can download freeware from internet
and uses it. These softwares do not provide any freedom of modifying, sharing and studying the program as
in open source software. Freeware is closed source.

Users prefer freeware because of following reasons –

 Available free of cost

 Can be distributed free of cost

Some examples of freeware software are –

 Adobe PDF

 yahoo messenger

 Google Talk

 MSN messenger

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Public domain software

Public domain software is not copyrighted. It is released without any conditions upon its use, and may be
used without restriction. This type of software generally has the lowest level of support available.

Difference between freeware and shareware software

Freeware Shareware

Free for specific period of time later on

Cost Free of cost
asked the user to purchase.

Modify source code Not allowed covered all the copyrights. Not allowed covered all the copyrights

Certain features are provided for trial later

Fully Functional Usually on to unlock the rest features, users need
to pay.

Some features are available for free trial

or have limited use.
Features All features are freely available
To enable the rest features, payment
should be made.

May or may not be freely distributed

Distribution Free of cost distributed among the people.
usually requires author’s permission.

Program may only work for short duration

Access Duration time Having no time limit
eg 30 days.

Some features are free for trial and

Advantage A free copyrighted software
covered by copyright.

Neither can sell these software nor can It cannot be modified and it may be either
Disadvantage
make any changes a cut down or a temporary version.

MSN messenger, yahoo messenger, Adobe

Examples Winzip,CuteFTP, Getright,etc.
PDF,etc.

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Open Source software

Open Source software is the software that is available to users with source code. Source code is a part of a
program or software. Users can modify, inspect and enhance it to improve the software. Additional
features can be added in the source code. Users use source code to copy, learn and share it. An Open
source software can either be free of cost or chargeable.

Users prefer open source software because of following reasons-

 More control over the software

 More secure

 Stable

 High quality results

 Helps in becoming a better programmer as you can learn and develop from the source code to make
new softwares.

Examples of open source software are –

 Apache HTTP web server

 Mozilla’s Firefox web browser

 Thunderbird email client

 database system

 GNU compiler collection

 Moodle

 OpenOffice

 PHP

 Perl

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Proprietary Software
Proprietary software refers to the software which is owned by an individual or a company. There are
restrictions on its distribution and use. It is also sometimes known as closed-source or commercial
software.

Some of the advantages associated with proprietary software are –

 Stability – Its releases are stable throughout and the software does not crash easily.

 Reliable – It can be relied upon during handling of critical processes.

 Uniqueness – It is unique in nature and does not have much alternatives.

 Compatibility – It is compatible with many Operating systems.

Some of its disadvantages are –

 It is costly in nature.

 Source code is not accessible for modification.

Redistribution is forbidden.

Examples of Proprietary Software –

 MacOS

 Microsoft Windows Professional Edition

 Adobe Suite

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