Software and Hardware Development

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Software and Hardware
Software and hardware are two components that make a computer. Hardware can be classified as the components of the computer that can be touched or felt and on the other software as the component of computer that cannot be touched. Software can be defined as a set of instructions given to hardware to perform different actions like an Operating System for CPU to perform actions. Hardware can be defined as the physical parts of the computer such as mouse, keyboard, etc. In the past few years, the field of Information Technology (IT) has seen a lot of development and progress so have the software and hardware. The world has seen a complete revolution in the field of Information technology (IT) (Valverde, 2016). From Charles Babbage’s difference engine to Steve job’s Mac Book, from IBM’s Mark-1 to Samsung’s Galaxy series world has seen a lot of progress in the hardware and software.
History of Software and Hardware
The software and hardware have a long history. The history goes way past with the invention of computers. The history of computer started with the invention of Abacus, an entirely hardware dependent machine, followed by analytical and difference engines which too were dependent only on hardware, but as the generation changed steadily software started to make its way. Computers now are equally dependent on software as they are on hardware, or even more. The latest generations of computer need the best software to be run on the best hardware. It can be said that “Every software needs a hardware but every hardware does not need a software”. Examples of Pascal Engine, abacus, analytical engines are there to prove this saying but in the recent history Hardware have become a lot more dependent on the software, now a good hardware without a good software is of no good use. A hardware without any software, now a days, is just a useless piece of some materials combined.
Evolution of Hardware
As discussed above, the first few computer like machines were fully dependent on hardware and completely worked using hardware. But, the hardware which was used in those machines had different problems like some hardware were too big to be stored, some emitted a lot of heat, some needed to be changed frequently. Keeping all the problems in the mind, scientists of that time decided to make machines with the hardware which did not have all these problems. So, steadily changes in hardware started to begin. The size of hardware was reduced, the heating issue was resolved, the frequent changing issue was resolved along with other different issues.
Generation of Computers
The computers are classified into generations depending upon the hardware used in them. There are five generations of computers which are mentioned below (Zakari, 2019).
1. First Generation (1940-1956)
2. Second Generation (1956-1963)
3. Third Generation (1964-1971)
4. Fourth Generation (1972-2010)
5. Fifth Generation (2010-Present)
1. First Generation
The first generation of computers used Vacuum tubes. These types of computers had to change because Vacuum tubes needed too much space to be kept and the processing was very slow as it used only hardware to perform the actions. Even the simplest calculations took a huge amount of time to be processed. Even though these machines made life of scientists a bit easier they still wanted to have faster machines.
2. Second Generation
In the search of better performance by the machines, scientists started to work on the hardware to invent something better than vacuum tubes, this is when they invented transistors. Transistors were better than vacuum tubes but still were not very fast. But they had few other major benefits over the vacuum tubes, which were, they didn’t need to be changed frequently, they were smaller in size, they didn’t emit a lot of heat. With the invention of transistors, the new era of computers started which was called second generation. This generation was surely better than previous in many aspects but still lacked a few things like the size got smaller but still was not very small, the processing speed did not increase very much.
3. Third Generation
After the second generation, scientists did not stop working for a better hardware and then came the drastic change in the history of computer hardware and it was the invention of Integrated Circuits also called ICs. This invention completely changed the face of the computer hardware, the size of the hardware got very small, the processing speed increased, the heat emission problem got almost vanished, so in short this was the hardware scientists were looking for.
4. Fourth Generation
After the invention of the Integrated Circuits (ICs) some scientists thought that the world of hardware has progressed much and now these inventions will be enough but curious minds of few scientists believed that this is not the end. They kept on working on it and finally they did find a better hardware, which was called Microprocessors. It was a very small chip and was better in every aspect from the previous generations. This was revelation as a small chip of merely few inches had the processing ability which many bigger machines didn’t have. This generation is still in use with many advancements being made in the chip or the microprocessors.
5. Fifth Generation
The advancements being made in the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI) are named as fifth generation of computer. Artificial Intelligence is the most vastly growing field in the computer sciences now a days (Jeungeun Song, 2020), it is mainly based on betterment of both hardware as well as the software, so the main objective of this generation is not just to improve the hardware but as well as the software.
Evolution of Software
The first few generation of computers could process without software but the next generations needed a software to be able to process, so with the advancements in field of hardware advancements in the field of software became necessary. The main software which was needed by the hardware was the Operating System, a software which instructs the hardware what to do and how to do. A hardware is a stupid machine which can not do anything itself so it always needs instructions either from the computer software or from the humans. In first two generations humans instructed the hardware how to perform calculations by turning on and off the switches but with the new hardware it became very difficult for the humans to provide instructions to the hardware so the need for a software which can pass instructions to it arose. On the basis of this need the development of software started.
Types of Software
There are two basic types in which software can be categorized which are
1. System Software
2. Application Software
1.System Software
The type of software that provides with the control of hardware is called System Software and the best example of this type of software is an Operating System (OS) Software.
Operating System Software
The operating system software, as described above, are the software that provide the hardware how and when to perform the different actions. The first operating system software was developed in 1956 by the IBM, especially for the mainframe computers. This software was used by International Business Machines (IBM), but this software did not turn out to be very much useful for the smaller computers which were developed later, so a better operating system was required, then came Disc Operating System (DOS) in 1981. This software was considered to have almost all the abilities needed for the control of Hardware, but with the Hardware getting better and better, software too needed to get better. The creators of these Operating Systems did try to keep the software up do date with the hardware and were quite successful in it. The main problem with DOS was that it was not very user friendly and a non-professional needed a lot of guidance from the professional to use this software. In 1985, came the Microsoft Windows, developed by Microsoft, this Software changed the face of the Operating Systems. It was a software which was user friendly and could do all the functions that were required from an Operating System Software. Since it’s introduction in 1985, the Microsoft Windows Operating System has not looked back. Microsoft Windows is still the most popular Operating System in 2020, and is being used by almost 1 billion people out of which 400 Million use the Windows 10 software according to the Microsoft. The reason Microsoft Windows is still one of the most popular software is that the creators of the software kept making changes in it to keep it up to date, while the older operating system software failed to. They made sure that their software is compatible with the hardware of the modern era and hence they are yet to face setbacks. Even with the introduction of mobile phones, the users of Windows have not got down, though Microsoft failed to attract the mobile phone users with its Operating System, it still continues to attract the Personal Computer (PC) users.
Windows being the most popular Operating System Software failed to progress in the mobile phone domain and failed to beat two big Operating Systems which are used in Smart Phones i.e. Android and iOS. Almost all of the smart phones use either of the operating system with the android having more users as it is an open source operating system provided by google whereas iOS is a special operating System Software developed by Apple Inc. to be used only in their products.
2.Application Software
The software which are not responsible for controlling the hardware and only have concerns with the end users are called Application Software. In other words, any software except the Operating System software is an Application Software, for example MS Word, Adobe Photoshop, Google Chrome, MATLAB etc. all are examples of Application Software.
Development
The field of application software has seen huge developments over the years. Almost every year Application Software are updated by the creators to provide best services to their users and to make sure the users are attracted towards their Software. In the updates they generally add some new features, fix any bugs etc. The history of Application Software also goes way back to early and mid 1940’s. The first Application Software was developed in 1940 but it was a binary code and only few experts could understand it and just like the first System Software, it was also developed for the mainframe computers. With the passage of time, the field of Information Technology (IT) grew and just like hardware and System Software, the domain of Application Software got higher and higher. Many Application Software have been created till date out of which many are almost finished and many are still widely used. The first spread sheet software which was very commonly used by the PC owners was VisiCalc, developed in 1979 in Assembly Language, a low-level language, later IBM also entered this market and developed an Application Software IBM PC which was first launched in 1981. Since these creations Application Software field has seen drastic and major changes. Starting from the machine language to assembly language to now been written in High Level Languages like JavaScript, C++, C etc. application software has come a long way. Application Software is the field of Computer Science (C.S.) which is always in need of new advancements, users can stick to one operating system for very long but users need frequent updates in Application Software or else they get bored with it. This is why almost all the Application Software are frequently updated, to keep users interested. Due to the increase in users of PCs and Mobile Phones the demand for new and better Application Software has become very popular, so the big companies are always in need of the development of the Application Software.
Combined Development of Software and Hardware
As discussed thoroughly in the paper, Software and Hardware are co related and are very much co-dependent (Frederiek M. Frankenfeld, 2002). Without a proper set of instructions, a hardware is nothing less than a useful piece of stick, which does not know where to fall or where to stand. It is the set of instructions which tell hardware what do and this is what makes it a useful machine. In this modern world, hardware without software has no importance, for example, a Personal Computer (PC) without an operating system is of no use for any user, because the language which machine understands is almost impossible for human to even read let alone understanding it so, if there will be no operating system software how will machine know what to do?, how to do and when to do? And when to do? A software is needed by hardware and hardware is needed by software.
Both the software and hardware have pushed each other to develop, in a metaphorical way. A good software needs good hardware to be run on and a good hardware needs good software to run on. Without either of them the system can not work and both of them are useless without of either of it. We discussed in the essay that in early days of computer, there was no software which provided the instructions to the system so humans had to do it manually, but now the hardware are so complex that humans cannot provide them with the instructions and not all of the users of the machines are experts who know how the mechanism of machine works which the humans in early days of computer knew.
Both the software and the hardware have seen drastic changes in the past twenty to thirty years. From huge monitor screens to LEDs, from a large desktop to a small Laptop, from a room sized machine to a pocket-sized phone hardware has developed a lot. And in the case of Software, world has seen emergence from software that took huge time to perform calculations to the software which can perform calculations in seconds, from only experts using the computers to now almost everyone using it, software has come a long way.
Development in both software and hardware have made the human life easier and now almost 60% of the Earth’s population use a device for different purposes.

Conclusion
In the end, we can conclude that hardware and software are both essential for a computer and both the fields have seen major and drastic changes in them over the course of few years. The development if hardware and software have made the life easy for the humans. The essay discusses the five generations of computer and how the hardware changed in all of the generation, how computer went from a size of almost a huge room to the size of pocket. The development of the Application and System software has also been discussed, and it is discussed that in the modern world both hardware and software have become co-dependent and have become a part of human’s life too. Life without a mobile or a computer is un imaginable today and all of the credit to it goes to the developments which were made in the field of software as well as the hardware which made the human access to these devices easy.

References
• Frederiek M. Frankenfeld, M. (2002). Basics of Computer Hardware and Software. American Journal of Hospital Pharmacy, 717–724.
• Jeungeun Song, I. H. (2020). Artificial Intelligence Defined Networks. The International Journal of eScience.
• M.VernerabO.P., B. (2014). Risks and risk mitigation in global software development: A tertiary study. 54-78.
• Valverde, S. (2016). Major transitions in information technology.
• Zakari, I. (2019). History of computer and its generations.