Hardware and Software

An Example of the Operating System Controlling Physical Access to Data

Popular Operating Systems

Workgroup Operating Systems

• Windows 2000 Server
• Unix
• Netware
• Red Hat Linux
• Mac OS X Server

Consumer Appliance Operating Systems

• Windows CE .NET
• Windows XP Embedded
• Handheld PC
• Pocket PC
• Palm OS

Application Software

Sources of Software

Proprietary and Off-the-Shelf Software

Examples of Personal Productivity Software

TurboTax

Quicken

Word Processing Program

Spreadsheet Program

Database Program

Graphics Program

Software Suites

Enterprise Application Software

Use of Integrated Supply Chain Management Software

Selected Enterprise Resource Planning Vendors

Summary of Programming Languages

• First: Computer interactions written in machine code
• Machine language
• Second:
• Abbreviations for common operations
• Assembler converts code to machine language
• Assembly language
• Third
• Instructions are English-like
• Compliers convert code to machine language
• Fortran: Good for scientific computing
• Cobol: Good file handling
• Java: Good for Web applications

Summary of Programming Languages

• Fourth
• Even easy for non-programmers
• Tell what to do, not how to do it
• Focus, Powerhouse
• Visual Programming Languages
• Point-and-click
• Drag-and-drop
• Useful for user interfaces
• Visual Basic, Visual C++
• Object-oriented Languages
• Objects contain data, methods to operate data
• C++, Java

Summary

• Hardware devices work together to perform input, processing, data storage, and output.
• There are two main categories of software: systems software and application software.
• An operating system (OS) is a set of computer programs that controls the computer hardware to support users’ computing needs.
• Application software may be proprietary or off-the-shelf.
• There are five generations of programming languages, plus object-oriented programming languages.