Kei’s family lives in a bungalow in a nondescript residential neighborhood not far from Shinagawa Station. On this particular Friday afternoon, I’m watching as Kei roots through her closet. We’re the only ones at home for the moment. Kei’s father is working his desk job at a textile importer in Shinjuku, and the two boys, four and six years younger than Kei, are at school. Her mother, who would ordinarily be with us, is out to buy groceries.
“Aha, found it,” Kei says, pulling a handheld electronic device out of a worn cardboard box stashed underneath a shelf of old clothes. The logo on the face reads “MISE 8400,” and it resembles a miniature version of a keyboard from the eighties. A two-line green LCD screen sits above the top row of keys. On the side is a 3.5-inch floppy drive. Kei randomly presses a few of the keys down with her free hand, which bounce back with a series of resounding clacks.
MISE was one of the first manufacturers of these so-called pocket computers, a name that stuck even though pockets spacious enough to fit one were rare indeed. Most were capable of running basic programs written in an interpreted language called AIM, designed in the 1970s by academics attempting to create a teaching tool for new programmers. The 8400 was released in 1986, at the height of MISE’s success. Over two million units were sold. Unfortunately for the Boston-based company, the rapid growth of the modern personal computer market during the 1990s essentially destroyed any future for pocket machines, and MISE eventually folded in 1997. Its remaining assets were bought by HP, who put the technology to use in their line of graphing calculators.
Kei flips the 8400’s power switch back and forth a few times, to no
visible effect. “I was kind of expecting this,” she says. “I haven’t
touched this thing in a couple of years, so the batteries have probably
gone bad.” She beckons me downstairs into the kitchen, where she pulls a
pack of trusty AAs from a drawer. After putting in fresh juice, Kei
tries to turn the computer on again, and sure enough, the front display
lights up with a simple prompt: READY in blocky, all-capitals English.
“I was only four or five when I first started playing with this, so I
didn’t know any English words at all,” Kei tells me. “There was
something magical about turning this box on and having it talk to me in
a new language, like a kind of secret code.” She taps out the command
SAY INTDIAG(), and presses the “Run” key: immediately, it responds
with ROM V2.52 02/15/91 800 K OK. “Actually, it messed me up when I
learned English in school later. I knew all these technical terms like
‘initialize,’ but not more normal words.”
“Were you ever teased about that?” I ask.
“Not really,” Kei says. “I don’t think anyone else knew any better.”