TYPO3 requires our system to meet some specific requirements.
We will need to have a system with a modern CPU running at at least 1 GHz, and at least 256 MB of RAM (although more is recommended). Since we are working (locally) on our own machines, we will also need a keyboard, a mouse, and a screen.
We will need a web server application such as Apache or IIS, a database such as MySQL (there are many different databases supported by TYPO3's Database Abstraction Layer, but MySQL is natively supported and is the most stable), and PHP version 4 or above.
Also, there are some other optional software applications that are recommended:
ImageMagick (or GraphicsMagick) and GDLib / FreeType, to utilize TYPO3's image manipulation capabilities, and the zlib compression library.