DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HARDWARE & SOFTWARE
HARDWARE
The physical or tangible components forming a
computer are called hardware
Hardware is a collective term it includes not
only the computers but also the cable,
connectors, power supply units and peripherals
devices such as keyboard, mouse, printer etc.
These are physical elements of a computer
system.
The hardware can be sub divided into various
categories such as input devices, output
devices, storage devices, processing unit,
communicating unit.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN INTERNAL & EXTERNAL DEVICES
INTERNAL DEVICES
These are stored in the command.com file &
are loaded automatically into the RAM during
booting process when you start your system.
These includes the simpler and common
commands which are needed on regular basis
Because these commands are part of
command.com therefore you never see their
names in directory listing
These commands remains resident in the RAM
and are available to at all the time
Some of the internal commands are cls, dir,
der, del etc
SOFTWARE
Software refers to the program that instruct the
computer what to do and how to do
Software is a general name given to all the
programs (instruction) and data necessary to
make the computer use able.
These are non-physical elements of a computer
system.
Software may be categorized as system
software and application software.
EXTERNAL DEVICES
These are present on disk in the form of an file
, means these commands are those, which need
a special file for its execution.
These are not used on regular basis.
The types of file that can ran as external
commands are .com, .exe and .bat you can see
their names in the directory listing.
DOS must read these commands from the disk
before can execute from them.
Some of the external commands are format,
CHKDISK