computer HARDWARE & SOFTWARE

Hardware
The term hardware covers all of those parts of a computer that are tangible objects. Circuits, displays, power supplies, cables, keyboards, printers and mice are all hardware.

History of computing hardware First Generation (Mechanical/Electromechanical) Calculators Antikythera mechanism, Difference Engine, Norden bombsight
Programmable Devices Jacquard loom, Analytical Engine, Harvard Mark I, Z3
Second Generation (Vacuum Tubes) Calculators Atanasoff-Berry Computer
Programmable Devices ENIAC, EDSAC, EDVAC, UNIVAC I
Third Generation (Discrete transistors and SSI, MSI, LSI Integrated circuits) Mainframes System/360, BUNCH
Minicomputer PDP-8, PDP-11, System/32, System/36
Fourth Generation (VLSI integrated circuits) Minicomputer VAX, AS/400
4-bit microcomputer Intel 4004, Intel 4040
8-bit microcomputer Intel 8008, Intel 8080, Motorola 6800, Motorola 6809, MOS Technology 6502, Zilog Z80
16-bit microcomputer 8088, Zilog Z8000, WDC 65816/65802
32-bit microcomputer 80386, Pentium, 68000, ARM architecture
64-bit microcomputer [14] x86-64, PowerPC, MIPS, SPARC
Embedded computer 8048, 8051
Personal computer Desktop computer, Home computer, Laptop computer, Personal digital assistant (PDA), Portable computer, Tablet computer, Wearable computer
Server class computer
Theoretical/experimental Quantum computer
Chemical computer
DNA computing
Optical computer
Other Hardware Topics Peripheral device (Input/output) Input Mouse, Keyboard, Joystick, Image scanner
Output Monitor, Printer
Both Floppy disk drive, Hard disk, Optical disc drive, Teleprinter
Computer busses Short range RS-232, SCSI, PCI, USB
Long range (Computer networking) Ethernet, ATM, FDDI


Software
Software refers to parts of the computer that have no material form; programs, data, protocols, etc are all software. When software is stored in hardware that cannot easily be modified (such as BIOS ROM in an IBM PC compatible), it is sometimes termed firmware to indicate that it falls into an area of uncertainty between hardware and software.

Computer software Operating system Unix/BSD UNIX System V, AIX, HP-UX, Solaris (SunOS), FreeBSD, NetBSD, IRIX
GNU/Linux List of Linux distributions, Comparison of Linux distributions
Microsoft Windows Windows 9x, Windows NT, Windows CE
DOS QDOS, PC-DOS, MS-DOS, FreeDOS
Mac OS Mac OS classic, Mac OS X
Embedded and real-time List of embedded operating systems
Experimental Amoeba, Oberon/Bluebottle, Plan 9 from Bell Labs
Library Multimedia DirectX, OpenGL, OpenAL
Programming library C standard library, Standard template library
Data Protocol TCP/IP, Kermit, FTP, HTTP, SMTP
File format HTML, XML, JPEG, MPEG, PNG
User interface Graphical user interface (WIMP) Microsoft Windows, GNOME, QNX Photon, CDE, GEM
Text user interface Command line interface, shells
Other
Application Office suite Word processing, Desktop publishing, Presentation program, Database management system, Scheduling & Time management, Spreadsheet, Accounting software
Internet Access Browser, E-mail client, Web server, Mail transfer agent, Instant messaging
Design and manufacturing Computer-aided design, Computer-aided manufacturing, Plant management, Robotic manufacturing, Supply chain management
Graphics Raster graphics editor, Vector graphics editor, 3D modeler, Animation editor, 3D computer graphics, Video editing, Image processing
Audio Digital audio editor, Audio playback, Mixing, Audio synthesis, Computer music
Software Engineering Compiler, Assembler, Interpreter, Debugger, Text Editor, Integrated development environment, Performance analysis, Revision control, Software configuration management
Educational Edutainment, Educational game, Serious game, Flight simulator
Games Strategy, Arcade, Puzzle, Simulation, First-person shooter, Platform, Massively multiplayer, Interactive fiction
Misc Artificial intelligence, Antivirus software, Malware scanner, Installer/Package management systems, File manager