software
Definition from Wiktionary, the free dictionary
See also Software
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[edit] English
[edit] Pronunciation
[edit] Etymology
From soft + -ware, by contrast with hardware (“the computer itself”). Coined 1953 by Paul Niquette;[1] first used in print by John Tukey 1958.
[edit] Noun
Wikipedia software (uncountable)
- (computing) Encoded computer instructions, usually modifiable (unless stored in some form of unalterable memory such as ROM). Compare hardware.
- 1958, John W. Tukey, "The Teaching of Concrete Mathematics" in The American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 65, no. 1 (Jan. 1958), pp 1-9:
- The "software" comprising the carefully planned interpretive routines, compilers, and other aspects of automative programming are at least as important to the modern electronic calculator as its "hardware" of tubes, transistors, wires, tapes and the like.
- 1995, Paul Niquette, Softword: Provenance for the Word ‘Software’:
- As originally conceived, the word "software" was merely an obvious way to distinguish a program from the computer itself. A program comprised sequences of changeable instructions each having the power to command the behavior of the permanently crafted machinery, the "hardware."
- 1958, John W. Tukey, "The Teaching of Concrete Mathematics" in The American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 65, no. 1 (Jan. 1958), pp 1-9:
[edit] Derived terms
Terms derived from "software"
[edit] Related terms
Terms etymologically related to "software"
[edit] Translations
encoded computer instructions
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ "Introduction: The Software Age" at niquette.com, adapted from Sophisticated: The Magazine
[edit] Italian
[edit] Etymology
English
[edit] Noun
software m. inv.
