QUESTION 2:
Imagine that you have a copy of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer. You tear it to pieces and push the shreds through your garbage disposal. Have you destroyed Tom Sawyer?
A great movie!
(You should make an effort to answer the question at the bottom of each page of these notes. Doing so will reenforce the concepts being discussed.)
In thinking about Monsters, Inc., you are thinking about intangible infomation. You can't grab it and throw it against a wall, or break it in half, or weight it on a scale. It does not have a physical existence. You might have a VCR tape with Monsters, Inc. recorded on it. The tape is physical, but the movie itself is intangible infomation. When you speak of the movie, you usually mean the intangible movie, not a particular tape that has a record of it.
The TV set you use to watch Monsters, Inc. is tangible. It has a physical existence. You can weigh it on a scale, you can throw it against a wall, you can break it in half, you can pound it to pieces with a hammer (and your grades might improve if you do).
The word hardware is used for devices such as TV sets and VCR tapes that have a physical existence. The word software is sometimes used for movies, music, novels, computer programs and data, and similar intangibles (although sometimes people use "software" only for computer programs and data).
TV sets are useful because they combine the tangible (the TV set itself) and the intangible (TV programs). Computer systems are useful in the same way—they combine tangible hardware components and intangible software components.
Imagine that you have a copy of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer. You tear it to pieces and push the shreds through your garbage disposal. Have you destroyed Tom Sawyer?