This is a Sinclair ZX81 computer made in the United Kingdom in 1981. It is one of the earliest home computers in the world and has a processor speed of 3.5 MHz and a RAM memory of 1K with add-on 16 K...
Compare that with today's computers with an average speed of 2 GHz and onboard memory of 2 GB... Compare today's ease of using hard-drives and thumb-drive for keeping and moving data to that time then when one needs to use cassetes and cassete players (now practically extinct) for the same job and easily risk losing programmes and having the system crash in the process! Oh, for the monitor, one have to plug a connection into a regular television. So there!
An uncle of mine bought this old computer in the UK and brought it back to Malaysia in 1982. I was then 12 with no idea such a thing exist until then... Still, using the computer and the manuals along with computer magazines available, I taught myself how to programme in BASIC and a bit of machine languange... Without the help of an assembler program with plenty of risk having the programmes and machine crash due to the limitations imposed then.
A few nights ago, that is 25 years later, I found the old computer under a bed in a family home. This lead to some nostalgia making me take a photo of it alongside a bottle of Zam Zam hair oil, to give some idea how small the computer is (about 6 inches across!)...
This lead to the posting titled Komputer Sinclair ZX81... Satu kenangan lama 25 tahun lalu! made in the blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU a day ago. Might as well share some of the thoughts here too...
This is a TwinHead 12 D laptop with a 12.1 inch wide screen and processor speed of 1.73 GHz. A dear girlfriend bought it for me in 2004 or 2005 (can't remember exactly), after finding out that my earlier laptop went out of action due to a serious problem.
I've never done any programming on this computer... In fact I haven't done any programming on any computer for close to 20 years! On the other hand, I used it more for writing. The result, I managed to write, design and publish 3 novels on my own, my first ever books all under the "Berpetualang ke Aceh" (literally translated as "the adventurous travel to Aceh") series with sub-titles "Mencari Diri dan Erti" ("In search of self and meaning"), "Membela Syiar yang Asal" ("Advocating the true faith), and "Sirih Pulang ke Gagang?" (The prodigal son returns?).
The books were respectively publised in June 2006, May 2007 and November 2007. Glad to say, despite the Malaysian book scene favouring more commercial and light materials, the series which goes against the grain of popular culture while exposing some untold unofficial Malay history against the Western Orientalist version of things, coupled with real-life spiritually-tinged experiences managed to garner quite a following... In fact some say it has already achieved an underground cult following status of sorts!
Now this laptop have been having some problems and has so far cost me more than RM1000 to fix... Maybe due to all the punishment imposed on it as most of time for the last 3 years I took it along my travels all over Peninsular Malaysia including forays into jungles and climbing up mountains? Starting about a week ago, the monitor refused to show any visuals. So sad to say but perhaps timely, after buying a new model laptop a few days ago, I decided to officially put the TwinHead 12D into retirement yesterday.
A rather lengthy story about it was written earlier today in the blogspot CATATAN SI MERAH SILU , under the title Komputer laptop TwinHead 12D hadiah daripada Nur. Mengenang jasa besarnya pada saya... . Same with the piece on the ZX81 above, I might as well share some the thoughts on the TwinHead here too, to cap a certain stage in my life... That's all! :]
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