Q.Distinguish between hardware and software, giving two examples of each.

The simplest way to tell them apart is that one is physical and can be touched, while the other is a set of instructions that can only be used.

Hardware and software work together — hardware is useless without software to direct it, and software has nothing to run on without hardware.

As Section a explains, a computer system is a combination of hardware and software, and the two differ clearly.

Hardware is any physical part of the computer — the parts you can actually touch and handle. It includes the input devices, the CPU and memory chips, the storage devices, and the output devices. Examples: the keyboard, mouse, monitor, printer, CPU chip, and hard disk (any two of these).

Software is the set of instructions, called a program, that tells the hardware what to do. It has no physical form — you can use it and see its effects, but you cannot touch it. Examples: the operating system, a word-processing program, a spreadsheet program, and an antivirus program (any two of these).

The two depend on each other: hardware without software is idle machinery, and software without hardware has nothing to run on.

Do not give a program (like an operating system) as an example of hardware, or a physical device (like a mouse) as an example of software. The dividing line is simple: if you can touch it, it is hardware; if it is a set of instructions, it is software.