Over the years, computer systems have been built with two main components. Firstly, hardware, being the physical mechanism allowing manipulation of data and the controlling of various inputs, outputs and storage capabilities. Secondly, software, dividing into two parts, application and system. This has the task of letting the hardware know what jobs it would like to be undertaken and in what specific order. Software is the term used for the programs which operate the hardware. They contain instructions which have been written by somebody in a language for which the computer can understand.

Through the years the computer industry has advanced rapidly in its development and this has been more so evident in the last twenty years. However the industry has been seen as a high risk area in terms of investment due to the large sums of investment capital needed. In both areas of hardware and software design, manufactures are consistently trying to out do each other to produce the smallest, quickest, ch

By the time Windows 3.0 was launched, hardware prices had once again taken a fall and were becoming more and more common in the everyday household. Faster systems were now being built as the 80386 lays testament, however Windows remained unsuccessful and the latest version of DOS, 5.0, still had limited multitasking. Hardware was constantly being developed and improved, with the introduction of the 80486, but software was constantly having to keep up with the changes and more than often was falling short of the benchmark.

OS/2 2.0 allowed DOS, Windows to be run, where as Windows 3.1 had fixed some of its bugs and provided support for some of the change in the hardware sector. However, even though these changes in the software were coming regularly, it was often not quick enough. Pentium was the next processor to be set by Intel, replacing the name 80586, and hence a OS/2 2.1 was released to handle its capabilities and soon after, the same version was released for Windows. The year of 1993 also saw the first release of Windows NT, the release of MS-DOS 6.0 by Microsoft as a bug fixing tool and the release of IBM DOS 6.1 which was more compressed and faster than the Microsoft version. Later that year Microsoft issued statements that its version of DOS was bug ridden and the release of MS DOS 6.2 was due to disk compression. Later versions of IBM DOS included better features along with the release of Windows 95 which ran 95% of DOS programs and most Windows. This was a success, running on the new Pentium Pro and soon afterwards followed Windows NT 4.0. IBM counteracted with the release of OS/2 4.0 which was meant to be the substitute to Windows, but due to the keen interest by major

Some common words found in the essay are:
Twenty PC, Kilobytes RAM, Windows Unix, PC/IX Unix, PCjr PC, Pentium III, DOS Windows, IBM DOS, Windows NT, Pentium II, version dos, hardware software, operating system, limited multitasking, hard disk, dos version, readily available, floppy disks, windows nt, release windows,
Approximate Word count = 1149
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)