Objectives

After you read this chapter you should be able to:

• Describe three fundamental categories of software and their relationships
• Explain the relationship of algorithms to software
• Discuss the factors that make a computer application a useful tool
• Describe the role of the operating system in a modern computer system
• Describe how file systems are organized
• Outline the evolution of user interfaces from early machine-language programming to futuristic virtual reality interfaces
• Explain why the unauthorized copying of software is against the law