CHAPTER ONE COMPUTERS IN THE REAL WORLD An artist sits at a computer She taps on the keyboard She clicks the mouse Suddenly a colorful cartoon movie begins playing An animated character leaps through a dazzling world Shimmering water bright sunlight and lush trees appear Then the movie stops It has taken the artist days to create just a few seconds of this animated movie She is a member of a huge team Computer animators use a variety of digital tools to make cartoon movies 5
Computer Animation Computer power combines with talented people to make incredible animated films First the team writes a script Then voice actors record their lines Finally the computer team builds the movie’s three-dimensional world Animators create lifelike characters and amazing visual effects The 1995 film Toy Story was Toy Story was Toy Story the first feature-length computer-generated animated movie Together they are building the latest cartoon blockbuster one click at a time Animation is one of many exciting fields that involve computers Workers create characters and environments They make them move realistically onscreen They may have to figure out how wind affects blades of grass or strands of hair It is a long process But the results can be amazing It is possible thanks to modern computers Inside Your Computer Computers are devices that carry out instructions They come in many shapes and sizes Some have parts 6
that are designed for their specific uses But most computers have several parts in common The core of a computer is its central processing unit CPU The CPU is a computer chip containing many transistors A transistor controls the flow of electricity It allows the chip to carry out instructions A single CPU may contain billions of transistors Computers also have memory There are two main types of memory Random-access memory RAM is used for short-term storage Drives are used for long-term storage They may be hard drives solid state drives or USB drives Both types of memory store instructions and data They also store the results of those instructions Input and output devices allow people to interact with computers Keyboards mice and cameras are input devices Speakers monitors and printers are output devices 7
