Computer Systems

The hardware of a system is the physical components that make up the computer.

Peripherals, internal components

The external components of hardware are the parts that you can touch

The internal hardware components are housed within the casing of the computer and include the processor, hard disk etc.

The software of a system is a collection of procedures and rules that carry out operations on a. Computer’s hardware. The software code may be stored on the computer’s hard drive or any other storage device.

Application and system

Application software refers to all of the programs that the user uses in order to complete a particular task

General purpose and special purpose

This is a software that can be used for a variety of tasks. For example: word-processing software

This is software that can only be used for one particular task. For example: scientific calculator

Off-the-shelf, bespoke

This is standardised software that is mass-produced, available to the general public and fir for immediate use.

Software that is developed to meet the user’s specific requirements.

Readily available for anyone to use, well-documented, well-tested

You have little or not control over what features there are, it may not do exactly what you want

It is tailor made to fit the user requirements exactly

Costs, time taken for development is long

Software that is needed im order for the computer to function

library programs, translator software, utility programs

A library is a collection of pre-complied routines that can be used by other programs. Programmers can invoke library subroutines to save time having to re-write code. For example: DateTime, Os, DLLs

Speeds up the software development process as you don’t have to re-engineer functionality that has already been implemented by others, allows use of functionality that you may not be a specialist in, more robust software will have already extensively tested by others

You don’t know what the library is doing (it could be doing something malicious of malfunctioning in some way), you can’t update the library yourself if there is an issue you have to wait for a fix to be implemented, some libraries have a large storage overhead in comparison to custom code implémentions

Software tools that are used to convert program code from one format to another, without adjusting the logical operation of the original program code.

This supports the computer system in operating as safely and efficiently as possible. It has the job of analysing, configuring, optimising, and maintaining a particular part of the computer system