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What is a Computer System?

System: A system is an interrelated collection of elements that are organized for a common purpose.

Computer System: A computer system is a combination of hardware and software elements that jointly perform desired functions..

A computer system should have the ability to receive user input, process data and create information for future storage and/or output with the processed data.
Basically a computer system consists hardware and software.

Hardware:

All physical components of a computer system are called its hardware. Hardware can be touched, seen and felt.

Software:

The term software refers to the organized sets of instructions that tell the hardware what to do.

The finite set of instructions that the computer follows to solve a particular problem is called a computer program. Collectively, the group of programs that a computer needs to function is known as software.
All software utilizes at least one hardware device to operate. For example, a video game, which is software, uses the computer processor (CPU), memory (RAM), hard drive, and video card to run.

Types of Software:

Software can be classified into two broad categories:

Examples of Software:

Key Differences between Hardware and Software

‘Human Body + Soul’ is a good example to differentiate between hardware and software.

Physical parts of the computer are called hardware. A set of instructions given to the computer is called software.
Hardware can be touched, seen and felt. Software may or may not be visible, but cannot be touched or felt.
Hardware has weight while software is weightless. The weight is only of the disc or media where software is saved.
Hardware requires a physical space, for example, on the Mouse, Keyboard etc. while software requires no physical space. Its space is only on the hard disk or other storage media.
Installing new software is called updating while installing new hardware or replacing old one is called upgrading.
Hardware cannot be transferred from one place to another electronically through network. Software can be transferred from one place to another electronically through network.
Virus always attacks on software but not on hardware.
Software is easier to change than hardware. The cost of change is much higher for hardware than for software.
Examples of hardware includes: CD-ROM, RAM, monitor, printer, GPU, scanners, modems, etc. Examples of software are: Operating System (e.g., Windows, DOS, Unix, Linux, Mac OS etc.), Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, Adobe PhotoShop, Mozilla Firefox, Media Player etc.