Monday
Monday: Hardware needs software
A neighbor wheels a cart into the Fix-It Bay. On it sits a tablet, a keyboard and a speaker. "Everything is plugged in, and nothing happens," Rocket reports. He presses the power button. The screen stays dark.
Raven looks closely. "What do you notice? The parts are here, but what tells them what to do?"
Nova hovers over the tablet. "Would you like a hint? Parts need instructions. Think about where those instructions live."
Two halves of every computer
For six weeks you learned about hardware. Hardware is every part you can touch or see.
The screen, the processor, the memory and the battery are all hardware.
But hardware on its own does nothing. It needs instructions. Those instructions are called software.
Software is a very long list of steps written for the processor. You cannot touch software. You can only see what it makes the hardware do.
| Hardware (you can touch it) | Software (instructions) |
|---|---|
| Screen | The drawing app that fills the screen with color |
| Speaker | The music player that sends sounds to the speaker |
| Keyboard | The writing app that turns key presses into letters |
| Processor | Every program the processor follows, one step at a time |
Think of a kitchen. The pans, the oven and the spoons are like hardware. The recipe is like software.
A kitchen with no recipe makes nothing. A recipe with no kitchen makes nothing. You need both.
- Read the question.
- Tap your answer.
Where the instructions live
Software is information, so it has to be stored somewhere. When the device is off, software waits on storage.
When you turn the device on, the processor copies the first instructions into memory. Then it starts following them.
That is why a device takes a little while to start. It is loading its instructions.
| Statement | True or false? |
|---|---|
| You can hold software in your hand. | ? |
| Hardware with no software does nothing useful. | ? |
| A speaker is hardware. | ? |
| Software is a list of instructions for the processor. | ? |
Back at the Fix-It Bay, the tablet finally lights up. The battery was empty, so nothing could load. A grown-up plugs in the charger, and the instructions begin to run.
- ?A grown-up checks the charger and presses the power button
- ?The processor wakes up
- ?The processor follows the instructions
- ?The screen lights up
- ?Instructions load from storage into memory
Name two hardware parts you can see.
Name one piece of software it might be running.
Great thinking, Crew Technician! You can tell hardware from software. Tomorrow you will meet the boss software that runs everything else.