It's not just hammers and power drills and brackets anymore. Hardware in the world of computing is the physical equipment, the hardwired equipment. It's not clear what's hard and what's soft, so the term 'firmware' has crept in to cover software built into the machine in ROM chips or other storage devices. Hardware is forever, the foundation of the system. Upgrades and expansions are possible, but the basic motherboard with its central processing unit had better not change dramatically or software just won't work anymore. Hardware used to be the important thing; today it provides the room for software to do its part.
This file created with Hypertype 2.2 by Simon St.Laurent