Ben had his sixth birthday last weekend. Aside from a large assortment of Lego (awesome!) from the family, his present from us was a Nintendo DS Lite. It’s amazing the change a generation has seen. The first computer I used was a ZX81, complete with 1024 bytes of RAM. At the same age, Ben has his own computer. It’s the same size or perhaps a touch smaller but has built in touch screens (plural), sound, microphone, battery, storage, wireless… and 4 million times as much RAM.
Now if Moore’s law holds, this means our grandchildren will get computers with 16 terabytes of RAM. That’s something like 2000 DVDs loaded in memory. Err…!
My main concern was that Ben was going to do nothing but play on it, so we set him a daily limit. This can be confiscated for bad behaviour, increased for good behaviour and all those other parent-style tricks. I’ve been pleasantly surprised, however, that he’s got a very balanced approach and he’s yet to challenge over having extra time.
His favourite game is Lego Star Wars and now I have a whole new set of problems to face as a father, such as how to trip up an AT-AT with a tow-rope on the Empire Strikes Back level. It’s a hard life…
With the Lego sets, the Lego Star Wars game and a trip to Legoland, it was a “very Lego-ey birthday” in Ben’s words. I won’t go into how we lost Ben for half an hour in Legoland, suffice as to say losing your child at any time is one of the scariest experiences you can have.