1.1 - Hardware and Software

Question 1

What is Hardware?

Answer 1

Hardware is the physical parts of the computer system, the parts that you can touch and see. A motherboard, a CPU, a keyboard and a monitor are all items of hardware.

Question 2

What is Software?

Answer 2

Software is a collection of instructions that can be ‘run’ on a computer. These instructions tell the computer what to do. Software is not a physical thing, it is just a bunch of code.

Question 3

The Difference Between Hardware and Software?

Answer 3

Computer hardware is the physical components that make up the computer system. Hardware is useless without software to run on it.

Software is instructions that tell computer hardware what to do. Software is useless unless there is hardware to run it on.

For a computer system to be useful it has to consist of both hardware and software.