A computer system consists of two major components, namely, hardware and software. All physical components that form a computer system are known as hardware. Software is basically a collection of different programs that tells a computer’s hardware what to do.
What is Hardware?
Hardware refers to the physical components of a computer. Computer Hardware is any part of the computer that we can touch these parts. These are the primary electronic devices used to build up the computer.
Examples of hardware in a computer are the Processor, Memory Devices, Monitor, Printer, Keyboard, Mouse, and Central Processing Unit.
What is Software?
Software is a collection of instructions, procedures, documentation that performs different tasks on a computer system. we can say also Computer Software is a programming code executed on a computer processor. The code can be machine-level code or the code written for an operating system.
Examples of software are Ms. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Google Chrome, Photoshop, MySQL, etc.
Major Differences between Hardware and Software:
| SOFTWARE | HARDWARE |
|---|---|
| Software is a set of instructions that tells a computer exactly what to do. | Hardware is a physical parts computer that causes the processing of data |
| It is developed and engineered. | It is manufactured. |
| The software can not be executed without hardware. | Hardware can not perform any task without software. |
| We can see and also use the software but can’t actually touch them. | As Hardware are physical electronic devices, we can see and touch hardware |
| It is mainly divided into System software, Programming software, and Application software | It has four main categories: an input device, output devices, storage, and internal components |
| Software is affected by computer viruses. | Hardware is not affected by computer viruses |
| It can be transferred. | It can not be transferred from one place to another electrically through the network |
| If the software is damaged, its backup copy can be reinstalled. | If hardware is damaged, it is replaced with the new one. |
| Ex: MS Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Photoshop, MySQL, etc. | Ex: Keyboard, Mouse, Monitor, Printer, CPU, Hard disk, RAM, ROM, etc. |
Also read: Differences between System software and Application software
