Define hardware.
The physical, tangible components of a computer system.
Define software.
The intangible program code, which contains instructions executed by the hardware to accomplish a task.
State the two classifications of hardware in a computer system.
- Internal components.
- External components.
State the two classifications of software in a computer system.
- Application Software.
- System Software.
Define application software.
Programs which complete a specific user-defined task.
Give some examples of application software.
- Spreadsheet software.
- Word proccessors.
- Web browsers.
Compare general purpose and special purpose software.
- General purpose software performs a range of often related and generic tasks.
- Special purpose software only performs one task.
State the advantages of bespoke software over off-the-shelf software.
- Bespoke software will be made to the users exact specification so provide all the functionality the user needs.
- User has control over what features are in or not in the software.
State the advantages of off-the-shelf software over bespoke.
- Off the shelf software is immediately, readily available.
- Bespoke software is often more expensive as you need to pay for developer onboarding and development time.
Define system software
Programs which controls, maintains and manages the hardware components of a computer system and application software.
State the four classifications of system software
- Operating Systems
- Utility Programs
- Library Programs (DLLs, dependencies)
- Translators
What is the function of the system software: utility programs.
Programs which run are designed to run periodically to keep the computer system at optimised performant.
Give three examples of utility programs.
- Data backup software.
- Hard disk drive defragmenters.
- Data encryption.
State the purpose of hard disk drive defragmenters.
Reorganises the physical location of data on a hard drive, for sequential access of files, in order to improve speed of access
What is the function of System Software: Library Programs.
A library is a set of precompiled subroutines that may be called by another program, used to interact with the hardware or frequently used by programs, to simplify the development process.
What is the role of an operating system.
Hide the true complexities of the operation of hardware in computer system, to make computing more accessible and increase ease of use.
State three tasks which an operating system must be able to do.
- Manages and controls access to space in main memory.
- Manages and controls access to processor time by way of processor scheduling for competing processes and multitasking.
- Handles interrupt tasks from I/O devices by way of device drivers.