Background Material

Module 1
Section 1
1.2 <Tab/>Software and Hardware
Hardware: the physical components of your computer: the 'box' and its contents (microprocessor, hard disk, graphics card, etc.), together with the monitor, keyboard and mouse.
Hardware includes components called:
*<Tab/>Peripherals: Separate hardware items that are added onto the basic computer unit, such as the monitor, modem, printer, keyboard.
Software: programs that make a computer do things. There are three basic categories of software: Operating Systems (e.g. Windows), languages (e.g. Java and C) an…