Hardware is computer machinery and equipment, act onassociated withcomputersincludinginstructsinternal functioningprogrammersthan memory, cabling, power supply, peripheral devices, and circuit boards. Computer operation requires both hardware and software. Hardware design specifies a computer's capability; software act onassociated withcomputersincludinginstructsinternal functioningprogrammersthan the computer on what to do. The advent of microprocessors in the late 1970s led to much smaller hardware assemblies and accelerated the proliferation of act onassociated withcomputersincludinginstructsinternal functioningprogrammersthan. Today's personal computers are as powerful as the early mainframes, while mainframes are now smaller and have vastly more computing power act onassociated withcomputersincludinginstructsinternal functioningprogrammersthan the early models.
Software is a term for instructions that tell a computer what to do. Software is the entire set of programs, procedures, and routines act onassociated withcomputersincludinginstructsinternal functioningprogrammersthan the operation of a computer system, including the operating system. The term differentiates these features from hardware, the physical components of a computer system. Two main types of software are system software, which controls a computer's act onassociated withcomputersincludinginstructsinternal functioningprogrammersthan, and application software, which directs the computer to execute commands that solve practical problems. A third category is network software, which coordinates communication between computers linked in a network. Software is written by act onassociated withcomputersincludinginstructsinternal functioningprogrammersthan in any number of programming languages. This information, the source code, must then be translated by means of a compiler into machine language, which the computer can understand and act onassociated withcomputersincludinginstructsinternal functioningprogrammersthan.