Difference between Hardware,Software,firmware

Agenda

• Difference between Hardware, Software, and Firmware

*What is Hardware *

• It is a physical component of the system/it's the physical part of the computer
• It can be touched by us.
• Examples-
• Keyboard, mouse, cabinet, monitor, printer

*What is Firmware *

• It is a kind of software that is associated with your hardware.
• It is installed at the time of manufacturing of hardware such as keyboards, hard drives, BIOS, graphic cards, and printers.
• It performs the basic functions of any hardware.
• You can update.
• Firmware is the foundation of the software stack that computer hardware uses for basic operations and to run applications.

Types of Firmware:

1. Low-level firmware
2. High-level firmware
3. Subsystem firmware

Examples in detail
If the user is pressing any of the keys on the keyboard, then the system will know what to display or what to perform right!!

On your keyboard, there is a start button/power button, now when you press the start button/power button then how system identified that it's time to reboot /restart/shutdown?

In your washing machine, When you go to wash the clothes then you set a time 5minute by the timer button (that is hardware) now think, how at the preset time timer started to notify you by alarming, how the system identified that after 5 min I have to give the alarm.
well, these all basic functions happened because of firmware that is associated with your hardware.

*What is Software *

• A collection of instructions that tells the computer how to perform a particular task.
• It is generally stored in user-accessible memory.
• Software is changed constantly.
• Software can be very big while the firmware is very small.
• It can be of three types :

System software
Utility software
Application software