COMPUTERS: TOOLS FOR PEOPLE

does that mean er do you like that or what oh I like that color well she like that okay okay watch this thing Hey [Music] if you like that way do you see the next part Wow that's pretty small let's get that did you really do this yeah computers are very much part of our lives these days and yet for many of us there is still a certain mystery about the computer how can a mere machine generate designs ask us questions conductor this manager this scientist these students these people will show us four basic ways to use computers dr. Derrick Sampson uses the computer to save lives his program finds one name out of 4,000 filed in a computer patients who are waiting for kidney transplants this college student for example Christina Rivera she must come every other day to have her blood cleaned for three hours it is pumped through an artificial kidney which removes poisonous wastes without this machine Christina would die what she needs is a real human kidney but she must wait until a kidney is found that matches her body a human body usually rejects tissue from another body so when a new kidney arrives a high-speed search begins prepares a row of numbers showing the kidneys blood and tissue types a 2 2013 7 prior to the advent of the computer we would spend many hours on the phone reading our tissue types looking for suitable recipients the result of that was many kidneys were wasted because we couldn't find a suitable recipient about a year ago the doctors began working with computer specialists so I'm gonna need you to help me determine exactly what you want this program to do what I'm gonna do here is write a rough closure chart of what we're going to need now what would be your first priority well the first decision point is to look for a perfect match and the question is do all 4 antigens in the donor match all 4 computer planning begins by identifying the exact results you want to get the results the computer must go step by step some steps are decisions which can only have two possible answers the computer cannot generalize and will only operate based on a yes-or-no answer essentially on a question or a problem now the next decision is it a three antigen match and if you answer is yes print that patient out and if the answer is no next question is the patient a to antigen match the plan showing all the steps is called a flowchart from this the application designer will write the actual program today dr. Sampson can call from San Francisco and hook up with a computer 3,000 miles away in Virginia we will enter the tissue typing data into the computer and look around the whole of the United States and Canada for a suitable match he enters the blood and tissue numbers for the new kidney while the computer searches for the best patient we can look at another kind of file search which finds a product and its price each of these 20,000 market products has a code number which is also shown as a pattern of lines [Music] the line pattern is converted to an electrical pattern which is sent to the computer's storage disk where all the product codes are filed [Music] from 20,000 items the system finds the correct name and price in a fraction of a second quick display from a computer file is also vital to these traffic announcers the announcer reads from a list showing the reports in order of importance a Sigalert is an urgent report after the producer keys in the report she must rate its importance she selects bulletin and the computer automatically puts the Sigalert at the head of the list the computer is invaluable whenever time is short and files are long it would be virtually impossible to do this kind of matching without the help of a computer and will slide it down Geri Curtis uses the computer in a very different way to control other machines a new car rolls off this assembly line every 60 seconds one key to fast production is welding by [Music] this is a teach control used to program the robot and now I'm going to cycle start once I've determined the position for a spot when I press the program button it goes into the computer's memory just like indicate that there's the first spot put these spots in while playing forward to this spot enter enter enter I'll replay backwards to make sure I got the spot and running an automatic [Applause] when I'm all done I can check the function make sure I have the proper program in flowchart that demonstrates how this is done when he planned the work Kurtis put in a test to signal the computer which program to run the test begins with an electric I suspended above the car roofs this device is automatically turned on when a full roof passes below you can see the read on signal from the electric eye the signal goes to a computer which controls the entire line the calculating power of the computer is used to make models by dr. James Blin he programmed a model to help design the robot arm of a space vehicle a model of an arm begins with one line funny subscribe mathematically in terms of numbers one of the numbers controls the length of the line by turning this knob we can change that number to make a line shorter or longer another number controls the orientation of it we've changed this knob changes the angle that the line is rotated turning sideways 90 degrees and going directly upwards it's 180 degrees dr. Blinn's program allows him to add more lines each controlled by numbers and to see how the lines work together pick it up and move it down to the bottom here so that when we change this angle it looks sort of like an elbow joint moving and if we go back and change the angle for both of them this angle here rotates both of them so that's sort of like the arm moving at the shoulder joint so computer models use numbers to describe things these are numbers from a different model which was set up to save the el segundo blue butterfly its last remaining home is this small field between an oil refinery and a parking lot to survive the butterfly needs a supply of it's only food the buckwheat flour and it must escape from parasites dr. Richard Arnold is trying to keep the El Segundo blue and other endangered species alive he must decide every year whether to plant more buckwheat if the flowers are too few the butterflies will starve but if the flowers are too many the butterflies will suddenly increase kill off the plants and attract swarms of parasites to help decide they keep a careful count of the numbers of butterflies and the numbers of flowers but the field is so small and the butterflies so few that one wrong decision could be fatal so dr. Arnold found a way to try out decision safely by making a mathematical model from his field observations he estimated how planting buckwheat would affect the butterflies and parasites from year to year he put his estimates into a series of equations which make up his model then he programmed the computer to do the actual calculations using a programming language called basic a programming language is a code containing control words such as print and input suppose dr. Arnold wants to experiment with planting some new buckwheat in seconds the computer calculates a generation or a year of growth it will then repeat the calculations for a second generation and a third on and on try again okay models similar to dr. Arnold's help students understand life systems such as fish finding food in a lake do you want to eat it or chase it since computer models are based on actual counts of real fish or real butterflies and counts are sometimes wrong computer results are sometimes wrong as computer people say garbage in garbage out and sort of computer models always depends on the input of human beings Julie chambers and Karen will Z used the computer as a creative tool for several years Julie and Karen have been programming in a language called logo okay this is kind of title and what it does is it drives the command words in logo control the movements of a small triangle called a turtle we asked Julian Karen to make the titles for this film at about the same time their workshop got a new piece of hardware and will have to install it now it's called a sprite board and to use it you will put it in the computer first and then after having done that instead of having one turtle you'll have 30 turtles this circuit board would be the key to the titles new hardware allows you to do new things with the sprites the computer now we have like 30 turtles one before we only had one and each of these sprites can have a different shape not really because there can be as many as you can define you can tell them to use the new boy they needed to learn new command one of us now if we wanted to tell it to move we have to tell it how fast to move so we can use set speed all right we can also change that's heading in a certain direction so to do that you can just type in set heading and I'll check back with you in a little bit okay that's neat I really could use that in the titles how can it make it like a whole bunch of them yeah yeah they're different like what comes like the background green and then have them move a certain direction like yes like having go diagonally or up and down yeah okay after shaping some letters Julie found a way to make the move and I decided to use the program to make the letters move around I told brighten it up to fit a heading at 45 and then I was looking at some speeds and I decided to speed to be 15 then I ended it can I see it okay there's really need then they divided up the letters of the title words and continued programming finally they were ready to try one of the titles tell them to fix or debug a program you list it then look for mistakes Computers make creative work in offices much easier a manager preparing a report can try out different arrangements until she finds a layout that best shows her ideas she can easily change the wording without erasing the computer handles the details allowing her to do the thinking in a similar fashion Computers allow artists such as David M to design freely without mixing paints or cleaning brushes it is the easy and quick response of the computer which makes it an exciting creative tool so people use computers to support creative work to make calculations as in models to control other machines and to store and quickly find information in files a vast variety of applications and yet all computer uses develop in much the same way they start with a strong need that people feel they often require long study in preparation large projects are developed by teams of users and computer people working together the project is outlined in a flowchart which details every step including yes-or-no tests where it can switch paths the computer is directed by a program a series of instructions moving one step at a time the program is written in a language made up of code words which control circuits inside the machine every program may have errors and finally wrong input gives wrong output garbage in garbage out [Music]