Software
Pronunciation
- IPA: ˈsɔftˌwɛɹ
Origin
From soft + -ware, by contrast with hardware ("the computer itself"). Coined 1953 by Paul Niquette;
"Part 0. Introduction: The Software Age", Softword: Provenance for the Word 'Software', 2006 by Paul Niquette, ISBN 1-58922-233-4 , adapted from article first published in 1995 in author’s magazine, Sophisticated: The Magazine, ISBN 1-58922-232-6 (archival links)
first used in print by John Tukey 1958.
Noun
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."