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Software is a set of instructions, also called a program, that tells the hardware what to do. A person would be nothing without a brain, the same applies with a computer, it would be nothing without the software.
Before 1952 the only programming language was the Machine Language. This is now considered to be a low-level programming language, but it served the purpose back in those days. It consists of 0's and 1's. You may be able to guess that it wasn't an easy task to even begin to program. There were often mistakes in them because it was just so hard to program. This resulted in the invention of the Assembly Language. In this language short letter combinations could be written that would stand for specific machine purposes.
In the 1960's high-level languages started to emerge. A programmer could use simple English words and mathematical expressions to accomplish the task that they needed the computer to complete. The programmer no longer had to worry about the details of how a computer worked to design his or her programs. The newer software packages such as Microsoft Word are made up of many programs that are designed to work together to accomplish the task that they are programmed to do.
Computers also need system software to function. This organizes the computer and allows it to complete any given task. It's like learning how to walk, but faster. A few well-known examples of this are MS-DOS (also called PC-DOS on IBM's), Microsoft Windows 9.x, UNIX, LINUX, BeOS, Macintosh, and more.
Application software allows the computer to accomplish a specific task such as Word Processing, Spreadsheets, and Multimedia Presentations. Special purpose programs are designed to perform a specific task for a single profession. These two are very similar. A very specific and complicated type of special purpose software is graphics software, with this software you can make anything from as simple as a picture in MS Paint to a 3-D Animation in 3-D Max or Lightwave.
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