Q.Distinguish between hardware and software.

Both are essential parts of a computer system, but one is the physical machinery you can touch and the other is the set of instructions that make the machinery do something useful.

Hardware and software are the two halves of every computer system and differ across several points.

Nature: Hardware consists of the physical, tangible parts of a computer that can be seen and touched; software consists of programs and instructions and is intangible — it can be stored and run but not physically touched.

Examples: Hardware includes the CPU, keyboard, mouse, monitor, and hard disk; software includes the operating system, word processors, web browsers, and accounting programs.

Failure and repair: When hardware fails, a physical component must be repaired or replaced; when software fails, the program must be reinstalled, updated, or fixed.

Dependence: Hardware provides the machine on which software runs; software needs hardware to run on. Neither is useful without the other.

Role: Hardware performs the actual physical operations (accepting input, processing, producing output, storing); software provides the instructions that direct the hardware on what to do and when.

Students sometimes give only one point ('one can be touched, the other cannot') — a full distinguish answer should cover several bases such as nature, examples, how each is repaired, and how they depend on each other.