Computers - Software

Computers - Software

Computers have become part of our everyday life – we visit shops and offices which have been designed with the help of computers, we pay bills prepared by computers, we read magazines which have been processed by computers. Even phone calls or bank transactions use a sophisticated computer system.

It is possible to use computers for playing games – most people, especially young people want to play games at home and buy a computer for that reason. During last years, rapid advancement of computer and infor- mation technology took place, which in turn caused rapid development of nearly all fields of science and technology.

Computers are electronic machines which can (1) accept data in a certain form, (2) process the data and (3) give out the results in a specified format as information. Three basic steps are involved in the process: (a) data is fed into a computer’s memory, (b) the computer performs a set of instructions and processes the data, (c) we can see the result on the screen or in a printed form.

The electronic and mechanical parts that make up a computer are called hardware, while the information in the form of data and programs is called software. Software can be divided into several sections: