What is System Software?

Any personal computer is complexThe electronic device consisting of blocks-accessories. All of them in sum form hardware (hardware). By analogy with living beings, hardware is a physical body. To manage it, you need the presence of something intangible: the soul, the mind, the spark - in this case it is not important. In computer technology, such an intangible component is the system and application software (software, software). Without programs, the computer appears to be an unnecessary pile of electronic components. All of the above is true for laptops, netbooks, many mobile devices, etc.

The software is all those programs,which work on the hardware configuration used. They are divided into several conditional types that define the purpose and functionality.

System software is the foundation. It defines the ways to implement the work of any programs that are launched to a great extent. Can be represented as a combination of interacting programs, the main task of which is to manage the hardware components of the computer (processor, multimedia adapters, RAM). Often, the term "system software pc" refers to the operating system (OS), although this is only partly true. System software, in fact, acts as a kind of "layer" between the hardware of the computer and the application user programs. In modern systems, no running application can directly interact with the components, in contrast to the DOS times, when such an approach was predominant. Now the application requires that it conform to certain rules and be written using a well-defined programming tool for the operating system in use. That's why programs for Windows can not work in the Linux environment (and vice versa), although in both cases, these operating systems properly manage the hardware components and provide a convenient graphical interface for interacting with the user. The system software interprets and implements control commands for any hardware component coming from the applications. In addition, modern computer operating systems are interactive, allowing the user to partially adjust their work.

System software is notthe only type of program. There is also an application software. User programs, just define the application environment. For example, to work with graphics, use the environment of the graphic editor, for text documents - the corresponding editor, for the game - the application game environment, etc. Certain application software does not necessarily have to solve only a strictly limited range of tasks: it is not uncommon to run various specialized small applications through the program interface. Often application programs are called "applications", which very accurately determines their essence, because the basis for them is the system software that ensures the operability of applications.

A surprising fact: launching any application program, the user, in fact, begins the process of interacting with the hardware components of the computer. For example, by enabling the playback of a song in the audio player, the user instructs the system and application software to output the sound through a sound card.