The Big Three

While a computer seems very different from other tools, in the end that's all it is. It seems this way because it has the ability to follow very complex and long series of instructions (software). In doing this, the computer seems like it is "smart" but it's really dumb. It's not able to do anything that the instructions don't tell it to.

To get tasks done, the computer machinery (hardware) follows a set of software instructions. These sets of software instructions come in two flavors - Operating System Software and Application Software.  Pretty much everything you need to learn about computers will fall into one of these three areas.