Antiquity

We were talking the past few nights, the other half and I, reminiscing about objects of the past. We felt old when we thought about them things especially those we grew up having (or dreamt of having), which have now become obsolete.
Technology has evolved over time and the gadgets (even that word wasn’t widely used back then!) we once knew had become antiquated.
But over time, they had actually progressed tremendously with value-added thrown in.
“Could you imagine what Walt Disney would have come up with if he had today’s technology back when he started in the animation business?” he asked. I told him that back then, there were enormous talents but not the technology but it certainly wasn’t restrictive in terms of the creativity.
Just look at the mobile phone for instance. From the brick-heavy ATUR 450, we now carry the slimmest of gadgets to communicate with each other.
With the iPhone 4S, you don’t have to worry about no one talking to you … with the SIRI, the phone talks to you!
THE CALCULATORI got to know what a calculator is at a very young age. It was my father’s. He used it for his work.
But the calculator of old is not like the advanced gadgets that we have now but a similar device with a roll of paper attached to it. What it did was basic arithmetic of addition, subtraction and division. Some old mom and pop’s stores still use these calculators especially when they have to issue receipts.
Growing up, when we hear the clickety-clackety sound of the calculator in the dining room, we would know that he would be working. Whenever there was a mistake in balancing the accounts, he would have to go through the tape again, to check whether he had made a mistake when inputting the figures or the mistake was in the books itself.
THE CAMERAMy brother-in-law owned something like this. He was somewhat the official family photographer especially during Hari Raya. We would be in our dresses and gowns (no, we didn’t wear Baju Kurungs back then!), squinting and sweating under the hot sun (those dresses and gowns bought from Robinson’s in Singapore weren’t exactly for the tropics!), waiting for him to set up the camera. I never saw him hold another camera other than that. His photography interest waned over time and with the advent of the compacts and DSLRs. He was old school, I think.
Then, my late brother took up photography when he was at Politeknik Ungku Omar. His was a Nikon. When he passed away, that camera became mine.
A few years ago, I bought my first DSLR. A Nikon D3000. This went to my niece when I bought the D3100 last year. Her father bought the D5000.
Now, with the DLSRs, you can set it on “auto” and simply point and shoot (even then, we can still get blurry results)!
And with technology being so advanced, newspaper photographers for example may one day find cameras with WiFi/3G facility, whereby they would no longer need to download the photos they took to the laptop before sending it to the office via email but sending it direct from the gadget itself. Wouldn’t that be neat?
THE CASSETTE TAPEOh, those TDK tapes! My eldest brother and I shared the same taste in music, thus we had boxes of those cassettes of disco music, ballads and pop groups (Abba and Bee Gees were his favourite. Boy bands weren’t big back then!)
The radio cassette recorder was mine; the tapes were mostly his. I remembered how infuriated he got when his tape got stuck in the deck of my radio cassette recorder but he was patient enough to pull out the tape carefully and rewinding it later using a pencil!
And we had fun dismantling the content when it got tangled up in its plastic casing, opening it up and putting it together again using the smallest of screwdrivers or the tip of a pen knife.
Can you do that to the iPods? Nah!
And for work, I carry a tape recorder but I’ll use it only when covering the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister and people who speak like a runaway train like former International Trade and Industry Minister Tan Sri Rafidah Aziz.
It used to be this bulky cassette recorder, followed by a micro cassette recorder. One time when I was interviewing the Sony boss, I took out my Panasonic micro cassette recorder, only to be told jokingly to keep it in my bag.
Then, the micro cassette recorder made our work much easier.
These days, it’s the digital recorder, where the voice recording can be downloaded to the computer and uploaded as podcast.
THE COAL IRONYes, we used this before we got electricity supply at the Kempas house. This was in the early to mid-1970s. We finally got electricity supply after three years we moved in.
(I remembered the LLN guys (Lembaga Letrik Negara, now Tenaga Nasional Bhd) coming in the mid morning to connect the supply. I was the first to switch on the lights in the living room that day, shortly before Mak send me off to school).
It was tough when we didn’t have electricity (and before Bak installed the generator).
Mak had to first lit the charcoal, put the ember into the iron, wait for it to heat up and start ironing our school uniforms. And that thing was heavy (to help smoothen the creases on the fabric). Her patience would wear thin as the hours passed and we know it would be best for us to be on our best behaviour or stay as far away from her as possible!
Now, we have all kinds of iron, including one that spews steam.
(Oh, and Kempas is no longer in the backwaters. Starbucks, McDonalds, Secret Recipe and Tutti Frutti, to name a few, are just five to 10 minutes drive away!)
THE FLOPPY DISKOh you know, that rectangular plastic thing that stored data? I remembered having boxes of it when I bought my first computer while staying at the Lorong Ara Kiri 2 house in Bangsar. I used it to store data and stories I wrote for Business Times. One time, I had mixed up the floppy disks and because I didn’t label them accordingly, I had to go through all of them to find a document. Even downloading games back then took more than one disk. Now, we talked of thumb drives (its called that because it is the size of your thumb, if not smaller, and not because you poke your thumb into the port!), USB flash drives and portable hard disk drives, among others.
Hand Sewing Machine/Sewing MachineIf you know Mak well enough, you’ll know what she’s refering to when she says “tak habis-habis mengenjen”. She’s referring to the shaking of your legs. Some of us have this habit of shaking our legs legs either when we’re seated on a chair or laying on the sofa or bed. It’s a subconscious reaction, really.
These days, it has turned into a question such as “Tak habis lagi jahit langsir?” or “Tak habis lagi tempahan baju Raya” or something else similar to that!
“Mengenjen”, from the English root word of engine, refers to the old sewing machine, where you have to use your legs to move the so-called motor to start the sewing operation.
No electric motor back then. It’s all in the legs to control the speed of the motor.
There is another sewing machine where you have to use your hand to move the motor.
I’ve seen my sister’s late mother-in-law using one before. It’s not easy, having to manually turn the motor with one hand and handling the fabric under the needle with the other. That takes the meaning of “ambidextrous” to another level altogether.
THE VINYL PLAYERThis reminded me of my late uncle at his Jalan Serampang house at Taman Seri Tebrau. I remembered him playing the vinyls every Sunday morning after he returns from doing the weekly marketing. No one was to touch or play with the turntable. That was his treasure. It came with the “touch that and you die” warning. He introduced me to Santana’s “Black Magic Woman” during one of the sleepover weekends at his house.

I asked the other half if he can tell me one activity that still used old equipment. That drew a blank. “What about baulu making?” You know of anyone using the electric whisk?” I asked. He remembered having to beat the white eggs using the spring-like whisk for his mother when she was baking baulu. That deserves a different posting on another day.