My Life — And Keeping Me Alive

While I jointly owned a Commodore 64 in the mid-80s and almost bought an Amiga because I had used computers at work since 1980, I didn't buy my first computer until the early 90s, when I was living in Thailand. It was a top-of-the-line 386 with 32 MB of memory and a few hundred megabytes of hard drive.

Soon after that I started logging on to the local BBS systems and as soon as I could I swapped to an Internet Thailand account in early 1995 and have never looked back.

I started writing for the Bangkok Post in 1991 with articles on C and Unix, and after a year or so I started with the Computer Currents theme, which in those days was the Windows column. This year, I expect to write the 500th one of those. I also briefly started drawing some cartoons modelled on the Far Side, but technically-oriented, called the Byte Side.

Since I have been working with computers in some way since 1978, you could say that computers are my life. I use them as an essential part of my job and to write articles like this one. I use one to play games, write software and I am currently using one to write a novel.

I use them to compose music and record songs and even to work out my scuba diving decompression profiles, so in that sense I am trusting a computer and computer software to keep me alive.

It has been a long time since I wrote in APL, a language that most people won't have heard of. It used special symbols and programmers liked to write one-line programs that they could rarely figure out two weeks later. These days, I use API's to access multidimensional databases and languages like JavaScript and VBScript to write intranet programs.

Next year, it will be .NET and XML and the year after that, who knows? My favourite activity is starting with a company and describing it in a series of business rules, procedures written against a large database schema. This used to be a relational database, but now it is multi-dimensional cubes.

I love it that I can get online and look something up. It used to take hours wading through books and writing letters, but now all I need to do is to enter a query and send an e-mail. At the same time, expectations have changed. It used to be okay to wait a couple of weeks for a reply to come back, but now if I don't get a response in a day or two I ask, "what happened?"

If you are idly flipping through the hard copy of this newspaper and don't have a computer yet, then buying one will change your life. At the very least, a computer and a modem will allow you to get in contact with people you haven't written to for years. You will build up a network by starting with one friend you know that has a computer and uses e-mail.

You can give a computer to your parents and start communicating with them more regularly. This is especially useful if you are living far apart. They get your e-mails in a few minutes and you can even send them the latest digital picture of your children or anything else you want to send.

You can save money on phone calls by using any of the Internet phone services. You can research products comparing features and prices, without even leaving your home. You can order flowers online and send them to your significant other or bid on that boat you have always wanted.

The Toys

First computer owned was a top-of-the-line 386 PC with 32 MB of RAM in the early 1990s, while current machine is an AMD 1 GHz Athlon CPU unit, 512 MB of RAM and 35GB of storage. Online with Bangkok BBSes since early 1990s and after getting account with Internet Thailand in 1995, have never looked back.

You don't even need much to start, just the minimum- specification computer with a modem. This will let you write letters, send e-mails and surf the Internet. If you add a microphone/headphone set, you can start talking to people. Add a small camera and you can have a video phone connection with someone.

My latest machine is an AMD Athlon 1 GHz CPU unit with 512 MB of RAM and a couple of hard drives that add up to about 35 GB of storage. Since I like to play the occasional game, I went for a good graphics and sound card. The whole thing cost me less than 40,000 baht and I added a Firewire interface card so I could capture movies from my digital video camera.

I have a scanner, printer, external CD-ROM, MIDI player, music keyboard and audio recorder that connect via USB and MIDI connections, which allow me to do just about anything I need to. I use a 17" screen but 19" is better and I like those flat screens that are starting to come down in price.

The future is a bit cloudy. I think I would be in line for a wetware memory upgrade and definitely a language-processing unit if they come out with one in my lifetime. Wetware is hardware that interfaces directly with the brain.

The biggest problem in Thailand right now is the low bandwidth communications network. Like my friends overseas, I would much rather be accessing the net at 750 kbps or faster for US$20 a month. This is only going to happen with competition, multiple access providers and better government support.

Whatever happens, get yourself a computer and connected as soon as you can. You will never look back.