Now that you are considering the lease or purchase of
a new computer, you may want to find out a little more about computers.
A computer system collects, processes, stores and outputs information.
A typical computer system consists
of several parts.
Hardware and software are the two basic parts of a computer
system. Hardware is any part of a computer system that you can see
or touch, such as the monitor. Software is a
set of electronic instructions that tell the computer what to do.
You can not see software, although you can see the disk
that contains software. There are two types of software: application
software and system software. Application
software lets you accomplish specific tasks. An application software
might be Microsoft Word 97. System software controls the overall
activity of a computer. A system software might be Microsoft Windows
98.