Sunday, April 18, 2010

Computer System

Figure 1: computer system hardware / components

Salam~

Computer system can be divided into 2 components:
1) Hardware
2) Software

Hardware is any computer device or component that we can see and touch physically such as monitor, system unit, mouse, speaker, keyboard, printer, hard disk etc. However there are certain hardware that is not available physically, but can be used virtually. For example: Virtual Keyboard. (we will learn more about this in future topic. but you can find the information or picture from the Internet. just key-in the word in yahoo@google and search)

Hardware is very important because without them, the user cannot communicate with the computer. For example, without keyboard and mouse, user cannot access any document or software or even play games inside the computer.

Software is the opposite meaning of hardware. Software is the part of computer that we can see and use but we cannot touch it directly. If we want to use it, we must make sure that the software has been installed inside the computer. Install means the software has been loaded or put into the computer's system and ready to be used. For example, when you want to play a Shadowtale game, you must install the game into your computer first by using CD or thumb drive.

Software also called as application. It consists of certain programming languages or instructions that tell computer what to do. For example, instructions in Word application will tell the computer to receive data typed by the user including text, symbol or numbers.