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A computer is a programmable machine that receives input, stores and

manipulates data, and provides output in a useful format. While a computer can, in
theory, be made out of almost anything and mechanical examples of computers have
existed through much of recorded human history, the first electronic computers were
developed in the mid-20th century (1940±1945). Originally, they were the size of a large
room, consuming as much power as several hundred modern personal
computers (PCs). Modern computers based on integrated circuits are millions to billions
of times more capable than the early machines, and occupy a fraction of the
space. Simple computers are small enough to fit into mobile devices, and can be
powered by a small battery.

Above is a little information about computer but in this assignment, I want to talk
about software, hardware and operating system.

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Computer software, or just software, is the collection of computer programs and

related data that provide the instructions telling a computer what to do. We can also say
software refers to one or more computer programs and data held in the storage of the
computer for some purposes. Program software performs the function of the program it
implements, either by directly providing instructions to the computer hardware or by
serving as input to another piece of software.

Examples of computer software include:

è Application software includes end-user applications of computers such as word

processors or Video games, and ERP software for groups of users.
è Middleware controls and co-ordinates distributed systems.
è Programming languages define the syntax and sematics of computer programs. For
example, many mature banking applications were written in the COBOL language,



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originally invented in 1959. Newer applications are often written in more modern
programming languages.
è System software includes operating systems, which govern computing resources.
Today large applications running on remote machines such as Websites are
considered to be system software, because the end-user interface is generally
through a Graphical user interface (GUI), such as a web browser.
è Test ware is software for testing hardware or a software package.
è Firmware is low-level software often stored on electrically programmable memory
devices. Firmware is given its name because it is treated like hardware and run
("executed") by other software programs.
è Shrink ware is the older name given to consumer bought software, because it was
often sold in retail stores in a shrinkwrapped box.
è Device drivers control parts of computers such as disk drives, printers, CD drives,
or computer monitors.
è Programming tools help conduct computing tasks in any category listed above. For
programmers, these could be tools for debugging or reverse
engineering older legacy systems in order to check source code compatibility.

 
  



The first theory about software was proposed by Alan Turing in his 1935
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. The term "software" was first used in print by John W. Tukey in 1958.
Colloquially, the term is often used to mean application software. In computer science
and software engineering, software is all information processed by computer system,
programs and data. The academic fields studying software are computer
science and software engineering.

The history of computer software is most often traced back to the first software bug in
1946. As more and more programs enter the realm of firmware, and the hardware itself



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becomes smaller, cheaper and faster due to Moore's law, elements of computing first
considered to be software, join the ranks of hardware. Most hardware companies today
have more software programmers on the payroll than hardware designers, since
software tools have automated many tasks of Printed circuit board engineers. Just like
the Auto industry, the Software industry has grown from a few visionaries operating out
of their garage with prototypes. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were the Henry
Ford and Louis Chevrolet of their times, who capitalized on ideas already commonly
known before they started in the business. In the case of Software development, this
moment is generally agreed to be the publication in the 1980s of the specifications for
the IBM Personal Computer published by IBM employee Philip Don Estridge. Today his
move would be seen as a type of crowd-sourcing.

Until that time, software was 

 with the hardware by Original equipment
manufacturers (OEMs) such as Data General, Digital Equipment and IBM. When a
customer bought a minicomputer, at that time the smallest computer on the market, the
computer did not come with Pre-installed software, but needed to be installed by
engineers employed by the OEM. Computer hardware companies not only bundled their
software, they also placed demands on the location of the hardware in a refrigerated
space called a computer room. Most companies had their software on the books for 0
dollars; unable to claim it as an asset (this is similar to financing of popular music in
those days). When Data General introduced the Data, a company called Digidyne
wanted to use its RDOS operating system on its own hardware clone. Data General
refused to license their software (which was hard to do, since it was on the books as a
free asset), and claimed their "bundling rights". The Supreme Court set a precedent
called Digidyne v. Data General in 1985. The Supreme Court let a 9th circuit decision
stand, and Data General was eventually forced into licensing the Operating System
software because it was ruled that restricting the license to only DG hardware was an
illegal 
 


.[5] Soon after, IBM 'published' its DOS source for free,
and Microsoft was born. Unable to sustain the loss from lawyer's fees, Data General
ended up being taken over by EMC Corporation. The Supreme Court decision made it
possible to value software, and also purchase Software patents. The move by IBM was
almost a protest at the time. Few in the industry believed that anyone would profit from it



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other than IBM (through free publicity). Microsoft and Apple were able to thus cash in on
'soft' products. It is hard to imagine today that people once felt that software was
worthless without a machine. There are many successful companies today that sell only
software products, though there are still many common software licensing problems due
to the complexity of designs and poor documentation, leading to patent trolls.

With open software specifications and the possibility of software licensing, new
opportunities arose for software tools that then became the de facto standard, such as
DOS for operating systems, but also various proprietary word processing
and spreadsheet programs. In a similar growth pattern, proprietary development
methods became standard Software development methodology.

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System software

System software provides the basic function for computer usage, which can be divided
into operating system and support system. Operating system is the most basic software.
System software helps run the computer hardware and computer system. It includes a
combination of the following:

è device drivers
è operating systems
è servers
è utilities
è window systems

System software is responsible for managing variety of independent hardwares, so that

they can work together harmoniously. For the system software, computer users and
other softwares regard the computer as a whole and need not give concern on how
every hardware works. The purpose of systems software is to unburden
the applications programmer from the often complex details of the
particular computer being used, including such accessories as communications



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devices, printers, device readers, displays and keyboards, and also to partition the
computer's resources such as memory and processor time in a safe and stable manner.
Examples are - Microsoft Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.

Programming software

Programming software usually provides tools to assist a programmer in

writing computer programs, and software using different programming languages in a
more convenient way. The tools include:

è compilers
è debuggers
è interpreters
è linkers
è text editors

An Integrated development environment (IDE) is a single application that attempts to

manage all these functions.

Application software

System software does not aim at a certain application fields. In contrast,

different application software offers different function based on users and the area it
served. Application software is developed for some certain purpose, which either can be
a certain program or a collection of some programmes, such as a graphic browser or
the data base system. Application allows end users to accomplish one or more specific
(not directly computer development related) tasks. Typical applications include:

è industrial automation
è business software
è video games
è quantum chemistry and solid state physics software
è telecommunications (i.e., the Internet and everything that flows on it)
è databases
è educational software



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è medical software
è molecular modeling software
è image editing
è spreadsheet
è simulation software
è Word processing
è Decision making software

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Design and implementation of software varies depending on the complexity of the

software. For instance, design and creation of Microsoft Word software will take much
more time than designing and developing Microsoft Notepad because of the difference
in functionalities in each one.

Software is usually designed and created (coded/written/programmed) in integrated

development environments (IDE) like Eclipse, Emacs and Microsoft Visual Studio that
can simplify the process and compile the program. As noted in different section,
software is usually created on top of existing software and the application programming
interface (API) that the underlying software provides like GTK+, JavaBeans or Swing.
Libraries (APIs) are categorized for different purposes. For instance, JavaBeans library
is used for designing enterprise applications, Windows Forms library is used for
designing graphical user interface (GUI) applications like Microsoft Word, and Windows
Communication Foundation is used for designing web services. Underlying computer
programming concepts like quicksort, hashtable, array, and binary tree can be useful to
creating software. When a program is designed, it relies on the API. For instance, if a
user is designing a Microsoft Windows desktop application, he/she might use
the .NET Windows Forms library to design the desktop application and call its APIs
like 
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 [6] to close or open the application and write the
additional operations him/herself that it need to have. Without these APIs, the
programmer needs to write these APIs him/herself. Companies like Sun



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Microsystems, Novell, and Microsoft provide their own APIs so that many applications
are written using their software libraries that usually have numerous APIs in them.

Software has special economic characteristics that make its design, creation, and
distribution different from most other economic goods. A person who creates software is
called a programmer, software engineer, software developer, or code monkey, terms
that all have a similar meaning.

 

Hardware is a general term for the physical artifacts of a technology. It may also mean
the physical components of a computer system, in the form of computer hardware.
Hardware historically meant the metal parts and fittings that were used to make wooden
products stronger, more functional, longer lasting and easier to fabricate or assemble.
Modern hardware stores typically sell equipment such as keys , locks, hinges, latches,
corners, handles, wire chains, plumbing supplies,
tools,utensils, cutlery and machine parts, especially when they are made of metal.

List of Hardware

è CD (compact disc) - the most common type of removable media, suitable for music
and data.
è CD-ROM Drive - a device used for reading data from a CD.
è CD Writer - a device used for both reading and writing data to and from a CD.
è DVD (digital versatile disc) - a popular type of removable media that is the same
dimensions as a CD but stores up to 12 times as much information. It is the most
common way of transferring digital video, and is popular for data storage.
è DVD-ROM Drive - a device used for reading data from a DVD.
è DVD Writer - a device used for both reading and writing data to and from a DVD.
è DVD-RAM Drive - a device used for rapid writing and reading of data from a
special type of DVD.
è Blu-ray Disc - a high-density optical disc format for data and high-definition video.
Can store 70 times as much information as a CD.



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è BD-ROM Drive - a device used for reading data from a Blu-ray disc.
è BD Writer - a device used for both reading and writing data to and from a Blu-ray
disc.
è HD DVD - a discontinued competitor to the Blu-ray format.
è Floppy disk - an outdated storage device consisting of a thin disk of a flexible
magnetic storage medium. Used today mainly for loading RAID drivers.
è Iomega Zip drive - an outdated medium-capacity removable disk storage system,
first introduced by Iomega in 1994.
è USB flash drive - a flash memory data storage device integrated with a USB
interface, typically small, lightweight, removable, and rewritable. Capacities vary,
from hundreds of megabytes (in the same ballpark as CDs) to tens of gigabytes
(surpassing, at great expense, Blu-ray discs).
è Hard disk - for medium-term storage of data.
è Solid-state drive - a device similar to hard disk, but containing no moving parts
and stores data in a digital format.
è RAID array controller - a device to manage several internal or external hard disks
and optionally some peripherals in order to achieve performance or reliability
improvement in what is called a RAID array.

è Sound card - Enables the computer to output sound to audio devices, as well as
accept input from a microphone. Most modern computer have sound cards built-
in to the motherboard, though it is common for a user to install a separate sound
card as an upgrade. Most sound cards, either built-in or added, have surround
sound capabilities.

è Text input devices

è Keyboard - a device to input text and characters by depressing buttons (referred
to as keys).
è Pointing devices
è Mouse - a pointing device that detects two dimensional motion relative to its
supporting surface.
è Optical Mouse - uses light to determine mouse motion.


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è Trackball - a pointing device consisting of an exposed protruding ball housed in a

socket that detects rotation about two axes.
è Touchscreen - senses the user pressing directly on the display

è Gaming devices
è Joystick - a control device that consists of a handheld stick that pivots around
one end, to detect angles in two or three dimensions.
è Game pad - a hand held game controller that relies on the digits (especially
thumbs) to provide input.
è Game controller - a specific type of controller specialized for certain gaming
purposes.
è Image, Video input devices
è Image scanner - a device that provides input by analyzing images, printed text,
handwriting, or an object.
è Web cam - a low resolution video camera used to provide visual input that can be
easily transferred over the internet.
è Audio input devices

è Microphone - an acoustic sensor that provides input by converting sound into

electrical signals.
è Printer - a device that produces a permanent human-readable text of graphic
document.
è Speakers - typically a pair of devices (2 channels) which convert electrical signals
into audio.
è Headphones - for a single user hearing the audio.
è Monitor - an electronic visual display with textual and graphical information from the
computer.
è CRT - (Cathode Ray Tube) display
è LCD - (Liquid Crystal Display) as of 2010, it is the primary visual display for
personal computers.



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An operating system (OS) is software, consisting of programs and data that runs on
computers and manages the computer hardware and provides common services for
efficient execution of various application softwares.

For hardware functions such as input and output and memory allocation, the operating
system acts as an intermediary between application programs and the computer
hardware, although the application code is usually executed directly by the hardware,
but will frequently call the OS or be interrupted by it. Operating systems are found on
almost any device that contains a computer²from cellular phones and video game
consoles to supercomputers and web servers.

History of OS

In the early 1950s, a computer could execute only one program at a time. Each user
had sole use of the computer and would arrive at a scheduled time with program and
data on punched paper cards and tape. The program would be loaded into the machine,
and the machine would be set to work until the program completed or crashed.
Programs could generally be debugged via a front panel using toggle switches and
panel lights. It is said that Alan Turing was a master of this on the early Manchester
Mark 1 machine, and he was already deriving the primitive conception of an operating
system from the principles of the Universal Turing machine.

Later machines came with libraries of software, which would be linked to a user's
program to assist in operations such as input and output and generating computer
code from human-readable symbolic code. This was the genesis of the modern-day
operating system. However, machines still ran a single job at a time. At Cambridge
University in England the job queue was at one time a washing line from which tapes
were hung with different colored clothes-pegs to indicate job-priority



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Example of Operating System

Microsoft Windows

Microsoft Windows is a family of proprietary operating systems most commonly used on

personal computers. It is the most common family of operating systems for the personal
computer, with about 90% of the market share.[5][6][7] Currently, the most widely used
version of the Windows family is Windows XP released on October 25, 2001. The
newest version is Windows 7 for personal computers and Windows Server 2008 R2 for
servers.

It originated in 1981 as an add-on to the older MS-DOS operating system for the IBM
PC. Released in 1985, Microsoft came to dominate the business world of personal
computers, and went on to set a number of industry standards and commonplace
applications. Beginning with Windows XP, all modern versions are based on
the Windows NT kernel. Current versions of Windows run on IA-32 and x86-
64 processors, although older versions sometimes supported other architectures.

Windows is also used on servers, supporting applications such as web

servers and database servers. In recent years, Microsoft has spent significant marketing
and research & development money to demonstrate that Windows is capable of running
any enterprise application, which has resulted in consistent price/performance records
(see the TPC) and significant acceptance in the enterprise market. However, its usage
in servers is not as widespread as personal computers, and here Windows actively
competes against Linux and BSD for market share, while still capturing a steady
majority by some accounts.[8][9]

Unix and Unix-like operating systems

Ken Thompson wrote B, mainly based on BCPL, which he used to write Unix, based on
his experience in the MULTICS project. B was replaced by C, and Unix developed into a
large, complex family of inter-related operating systems which have been influential in
every modern operating system (see History). The 
 family is a diverse group of
operating systems, with several major sub-categories including System V, BSD,



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and GNU/Linux. The name "UNIX" is a trademark of The Open Groupwhich licenses it
for use with any operating system that has been shown to conform to their definitions.
"Unix-like" is commonly used to refer to the large set of operating systems which
resemble the original Unix.

Unix-like systems run on a wide variety of machine architectures. They are used heavily
for servers in business, as well as workstations in academic and engineering
environments. Free Unix variants, such as GNU/Linux and BSD, are popular in these
areas.

Some Unix variants like HP's HP-UX and IBM's AIX are designed to run only on that
vendor's hardware. Others, such as Solaris, can run on multiple types of hardware,
including x86 servers and PCs. Apple's Mac OS X, a hybrid kernel-based BSD variant
derived from NeXTSTEP, Mach, and FreeBSD, has replaced Apple's earlier (non-Unix)
Mac OS.

Unix interoperability was sought by establishing the POSIX standard. The POSIX
standard can be applied to any operating system, although it was originally created for
various Unix variants.

A subgroup of the Unix family is the Berkeley Software Distribution family, which
includes FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD. These operating systems are most
commonly found on webservers, although they can also function as a personal
computer OS. The Internet owes much of its existence to BSD, as many of the protocols
now commonly used by computers to connect, send and receive data over a network
were widely implemented and refined in BSD. The world wide web was also first
demonstrated on a number of computers running an OS based on BSD
called NextStep.

BSD has its roots in Unix. In 1974, University of California, Berkeley installed its first
Unix system. Over time, students and staff in the computer science department there
began adding new programs to make things easier, such as text editors. When Berkely
received new VAX computers in 1978 with Unix installed, the school's undergraduates



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modified Unix even more in order to take advantage of the computer's hardware
possibilities. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency of the USDepartment of
Defense took interest, and decided to fund the project. Many schools, corporations, and
government organizations took notice and started to use Berkeley's version of Unix
instead of the official one distributed by AT&T. Steve Jobs, upon leaving Apple Inc. in
1985, formed NeXT Inc., a company that manufactured high-end computers running on
a variation of BSD calledNeXTSTEP. One of these computers was used by Tim
Berners-Lee as the first webserver to create the World Wide Web.

Developers like Keith Bostic encouraged the project to replace any non-free code that
originated with Bell Labs. Once this was done, however, AT&T sued. Eventually, after
two years of legal disputes, the BSD project came out ahead and spawned a number of
free derivatives, such as FreeBSD and NetBSD. However, the two year wait had set the
stage for two projects that would ultimately eclipse both BSD and Unix: GNU and Linux.

 

Mac OS X is a line of partially proprietary graphical operating systems developed,

marketed, and sold by Apple Inc., the latest of which is pre-loaded on all currently
shipping Macintosh computers. Mac OS X is the successor to the original Mac OS,
which had been Apple's primary operating system since 1984. Unlike its predecessor,
Mac OS X is a UNIX operating system built on technology that had been developed
at NeXT through the second half of the 1980s and up until Apple purchased the
company in early 1997.

The operating system was first released in 1999 as Mac OS X Server 1.0, with a
desktop-oriented version (Mac OS X v10.0) following in March 2001. Since then, six
more distinct "client" and "server" editions of Mac OS X have been released, the most
recent being Mac OS X v10.6, which was first made available on August 28, 2009.
Releases of Mac OS X are named after big cats; the current version of Mac OS X is
"Snow Leopard".

The server edition, Mac OS X Server, is architecturally identical to its desktop

counterpart but usually runs on Apple's line of Macintosh server hardware. Mac OS X
Server includes work group management and administration software tools that provide



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simplified access to key network services, including a mail transfer agent, a Samba
server, an LDAP server, a domain name server, and others.

!
"

Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie and Douglas McIlroy at Bell Labs designed and
developed the C programming language to build the operating system Unix.
Programmers at Bell Labs went on to develop Plan 9 and Inferno, which were
engineered for modern distributed environments. Plan 9 was designed from the start to
be a networked operating system, and had graphics built-in, unlike Unix, which added
these features to the design later. It is currently released under the Lucent Public
License. Inferno was sold to Vita Nuova Holdings and has been released under a
GPL/MIT license.

Linux and GNU

Linux is the generic name for a UNIX-like operating system that can be used on a wide
range of devices from supercomputers to wristwatches. The Linux kernel is released
under an open source license, so anyone can read and modify its code. It has been
modified to run on a large variety of electronics. Although estimates suggest it is used
on only 0.5-2% of all personal computers it has been widely adopted for use in servers
and embedded systems (such as cell phones). Linux has superseded Unix in most
places and is used on the 10 most powerful supercomputers in the world.

The GNU project is a mass collaboration of programmers who seek to create a

completely free and open operating system that was similar to Unix but with completely
original code. It was started in 1983 by Richard Stallman, and is responsible for many of
the parts of most Linux variants. For this reason, Linux is often called GNU/Linux.
Thousands of pieces of software for virtually every operating system are licensed under
the GNU General Public License. Meanwhile, the Linux kernel began as a side project
of Linus Torvalds, a university student from Finland. In 1991, Torvalds began work on it,
and posted information about his project on a newsgroup for computer students and
programmers. He received a wave of support and volunteers who ended up creating a
full-fledged kernel. Programmers from GNU took notice, and members of both projects



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worked to integrate the finished GNU parts into the linux kernel in order to create a full-
fledged operating system.

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Chrome is an operating system based on the Linux kernel and designed by Google.
Chrome targets computer users that spend most of their time on the Internet²it is
technically only a web browser with no other applications, and relies on Internet
applications used in the web browser to accomplish tasks such as word processing and
media viewing.

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Combination of this three will create a computer that all of us obtain. This is why I talked
about this in my assignment for computer concept.

  

è http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operating_system
è http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware
è http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_computer_hardware
è http://www.hardwarezone.com.my/home/showad.html
è http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0099740/
è http://www.jstor.org/pss/1372482
è Lecture note