Software

Software is the name given to computer programs, which are normally stored on data storage media such as tapes, floppy disks, CD, DVD or hard disks. This is distinct from data, which is information, or data points that can be processed or collated into information, rather than a set of instructions that constitutes a program. Both software and data are loaded from storage media into RAM as required by the user, operating system or application

Software can be loaded, saved or modified with programs or directly through programming. Software programs (games, applications, tools) can be run or printed out as a program listing.

Software types can be grouped by classification, such as:

• Computer games,
• Applications, such as word processing, spreadsheet processing, image-editing, video-editing, sound-editing, etc.
• Operating systems (OS),
• Programming tools such as editors, compilers, decompilers, etc.
• Hardware Control Software like OS, firmware, drivers for internal or external hardware.
• Simple utilities and tools.

Links

Wikipedia: Software