1 00:00:05,120 --> 00:00:09,462 My name is May-Li Khoe and I'm a designer and an inventor. 2 00:00:10,300 --> 00:00:15,680 So some of the things I've designed have been at Apple, and now I design products for kids to use 3 00:00:15,680 --> 00:00:18,060 so that they can have an easier time in school. 4 00:00:18,060 --> 00:00:22,300 My other jobs include DJ-ing and dancing. 5 00:00:25,620 --> 00:00:27,960 Computers are everywhere! 6 00:00:27,960 --> 00:00:33,180 They're in people's pockets, they're in people's cars, people have them on their wrists. 7 00:00:33,180 --> 00:00:35,460 They might be in your backpack right now. 8 00:00:36,160 --> 00:00:38,820 But what makes a computer a computer? 9 00:00:38,820 --> 00:00:41,000 What does make a computer a computer anyway? 10 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:42,980 And how does it even work? 11 00:00:46,380 --> 00:00:50,180 Hi I'm Nat! I was one of the original designers of the Xbox. 12 00:00:50,460 --> 00:00:56,040 I've been working with computers since I was maybe seven years old and now I work on virtual reality. 13 00:01:07,180 --> 00:01:10,520 As humans, we've always built tools to help us solve problems. 14 00:01:10,600 --> 00:01:15,900 Tools like a wheelbarrow, a hammer, or a printing press, or a tractor-trailer. 15 00:01:15,900 --> 00:01:19,220 All of these inventions helped us with manual work. 16 00:01:19,220 --> 00:01:21,280 Over time, people began to wonder 17 00:01:21,380 --> 00:01:25,560 if a machine could be designed and built to help us with the thinking work we do, 18 00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:29,820 like solving equations or tracking the stars in the sky. 19 00:01:29,820 --> 00:01:34,280 Rather than moving or manipulating physical things like dirt and stone, 20 00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:38,300 these machines would need to be designed to manipulate information. 21 00:01:40,040 --> 00:01:43,740 As the pioneers of computer science explored how to design a thinking machine, 22 00:01:43,740 --> 00:01:46,920 they realized that it had to perform four different tasks. 23 00:01:48,240 --> 00:01:50,240 It would need to take input, 24 00:01:51,080 --> 00:01:52,360 store information 25 00:01:53,400 --> 00:01:56,180 process it and then output the results. 26 00:01:56,700 --> 00:01:58,580 Now this might sound simple, 27 00:01:58,580 --> 00:02:01,980 but these four things are common to all computers. 28 00:02:02,740 --> 00:02:05,620 That's what makes a computer a computer. 29 00:02:07,940 --> 00:02:10,419 The earliest computers were made out of wood and metal 30 00:02:10,419 --> 00:02:12,580 with mechanical levers and gears. 31 00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:17,600 By the 20th century, though, computers started using electrical components. 32 00:02:17,600 --> 00:02:21,100 These early computers were really large and really slow. 33 00:02:21,100 --> 00:02:25,380 A computer the size of a room might take hours just to do a basic math problem. 34 00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:33,040 These machines are things of gleaming, varied colored metal and numerous flashing lights. 35 00:02:33,320 --> 00:02:36,100 Computers started out as basic calculators, 36 00:02:36,100 --> 00:02:40,760 which was already really awesome at the time, and they were only manipulating numbers back then. 37 00:02:40,800 --> 00:02:47,220 But now we can use them to talk to each other, we can use them to play games, control robots, 38 00:02:47,220 --> 00:02:49,980 and do any crazy thing that you could probably imagine. 39 00:02:50,920 --> 00:02:54,120 Modern computers look nothing like those clunky old machines 40 00:02:54,120 --> 00:02:56,580 but they still do these same four things. 41 00:03:02,740 --> 00:03:04,740 First, we're going to talk about input. 42 00:03:04,740 --> 00:03:07,180 This is my favorite because what input is 43 00:03:07,180 --> 00:03:12,240 is the stuff that the world does or that you do that makes the computer do stuff. 44 00:03:12,240 --> 00:03:14,160 You can tell computers what to do with the keyboard, 45 00:03:14,160 --> 00:03:18,640 you can tell them what to do with the mouse, the microphone, the camera. 46 00:03:18,640 --> 00:03:22,400 And now if you're wearing a computer on your wrist, it might listen to your heartbeat 47 00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:25,520 or in your car, it might be listening to what the car is doing. 48 00:03:25,520 --> 00:03:31,180 And a touchscreen can actually sense your finger, and it takes that as input on what it's doing. 49 00:03:36,200 --> 00:03:40,680 All these different inputs give a computer information, which is then stored in memory. 50 00:03:41,860 --> 00:03:45,480 A computer's processor takes information from memory. 51 00:03:45,480 --> 00:03:47,920 It manipulates it or changes it using an algorithm, 52 00:03:47,920 --> 00:03:49,980 which is just a series of commands. 53 00:03:49,980 --> 00:03:54,180 And then it sends the processed information back to be stored in memory again. 54 00:03:54,200 --> 00:03:58,620 This continues until the processed information is ready to be output. 55 00:04:03,320 --> 00:04:07,260 How a computer outputs information depends on what the computer is designed to do. 56 00:04:07,260 --> 00:04:13,180 A computer display can show text, photos, videos, or interactive games -- even virtual reality! 57 00:04:13,180 --> 00:04:17,279 The output of a computer may even include signals to control a robot. 58 00:04:17,279 --> 00:04:19,820 And, when computers connect over the Internet, 59 00:04:19,820 --> 00:04:23,880 the output from one computer becomes the input to another, and vice versa. 60 00:04:25,620 --> 00:04:29,760 The computers we use today look really different from the earliest thinking machines. 61 00:04:29,760 --> 00:04:32,620 And who knows what the computers of tomorrow will be like? 62 00:04:32,620 --> 00:04:37,480 My hope is that you get to help decide what you want the computers of tomorrow to look like. 63 00:04:37,480 --> 00:04:41,480 But across all computers, regardless of the different types of technology they use, 64 00:04:41,480 --> 00:04:44,580 they're always doing those same four things. 65 00:04:44,580 --> 00:04:46,360 They take in information, 66 00:04:46,360 --> 00:04:47,980 they store it as data, 67 00:04:47,980 --> 00:04:49,520 they process it, 68 00:04:49,520 --> 00:04:51,460 and then they output the results.