Father and Son, Commonalities During Hospitalization — The World That "Moves as Written" Given to Me by My Father

A parent and child on a hospital bed

When I was hospitalized for cancer, I didn't bring my computer to the hospital room. Partly as a reaction to having worked so intensely until then, I had decided that this time, I would rest both my mind and body. All I brought was a tablet. I intended to read books, watch movies, and enjoy things I hadn't been able to do before.

However, that wasn't the case. Actually, I had been curious about generative AI even before I was hospitalized. But I was busy, and I didn't have the time to look into it or play with it. The place where I finally got to do that, of all places, was on my hospital bed. I browsed YouTube and online articles on my tablet. It seemed that even if you couldn't write code, you could build apps if you were with AI. Before I knew it, I was absorbed in researching it on the bed where I was supposed to be resting.

It is ironic, but if it weren't for this hospitalization, I wouldn't have had this encounter. To put it positively, I now think that I was able to come across a good opportunity.

After being discharged, I started building apps for my family together with AI. AI does the manual work, and I make the decisions. I still cannot write code.

At one point, I suddenly remembered. My father, too, had been tapping away on a small computer on his hospital bed a long time ago.

We really are parent and child, I thought.

Why did I think that? To explain it, I have to go back to the very beginning, when I realized that I loved technology.

1 - Moving exactly as written

When I was in elementary school, my father bought me an MSX. It was a popular home computer at the time. To be honest, at first, it was just a "game machine." It had attractive games for the time, like Hydlide and Circus Charlie. ...My age is probably about to be revealed around here (laughs).

We had a SONY HitBit at home. It was a model that took the world by storm with the TV commercial, "Hi-to-bi-to no, HitBit." It had a built-in keyboard and was used by connecting it to a home TV. Thinking back, it was also an accessible "first computer."

I had my father buy me an introductory programming book, and I started BASIC out of curiosity. Encouraged by my father, I also started attending a computer class in a town about 30 minutes away by train. I became able to draw simple shapes, write small programs, and see the screen move according to the commands I typed in myself. It moved exactly as I wrote it. That was incredibly fun.

On weekends, I would make games with my father. Even though I say "made," I just typed in the code that was in the book exactly as it was. Even so, when the finished game worked, my father was happy too. My father loved these kinds of things as well. Well, I was the one who mainly played them (laughs).

The storage medium at the time was a cassette tape. We would turn the program into sound to record it, and when loading it, it would make a "pee-gagagaga" sound from the speaker. That sound still remains in my ears even now.

2 - Someone who actually wanted to go into engineering

My father was a person who loved technology. He often told me, when I was small, about the structures and mechanisms of machines and audio equipment.

However, there was one thing my father gave up on. He actually wanted to go into engineering at university, but he couldn't. He had color blindness. At the time, that was a reason to close the path to engineering. My father went to law school and became a banker.

My father, the banker, worked late every night. Since Saturday was also a workday back then, he must have been exhausted on Sundays. Even so, on those Sundays, he would take me and my younger sister to the beach or ice skating. He was a person who loved his family above all else and cherished us. Even now, I am truly grateful to him.

3 - Times have changed

I also have the same color blindness as my father.

However, by the time I reached university, the times had changed. The path to engineering, which had been closed in my father's day, was open to me. I went on to the faculty of engineering and became an engineer. I was able to choose the path my father could not.

That said, the path I took was in hardware. Circuit design became my job, and I never specialized in software. As for the BASIC I knew as a child, it completely slipped my mind after not touching it for decades (^^; That is why I wrote at the beginning that I 'cannot write code.' But the feeling of loving things that 'move exactly as written' never changed, even when I moved to hardware. Circuits, too, are a world that moves exactly as designed.

If it weren't for my father, I wouldn't have become an engineer. The fact that I enjoy this work now can be traced back to him.

4 - Coincidence on the hospital bed

My father was hospitalized for back pain when I was in elementary school. The cause was a tug-of-war competition held during a class observation event. He got too enthusiastic and, of all things, pulled for the neighboring class as well, resulting in a hernia and several months of hospitalization. ...I feel like being too enthusiastic and causing trouble is something I inherited from him (-_-;)

During that hospital stay, my father enjoyed using a pocket computer. It was a machine that looked like a slightly larger calculator, and all it could display were dot characters on a small screen. My father bought programming books and learned to write programs by trial and error. He used characters to represent and move figures, combined numbers, and even made a golf game.

Every time I went to visit him, there was a new game. I would play them right next to his hospital bed.

Decades later, it was my turn to be hospitalized with cancer. As I wrote at the beginning, I had decided to rest and intentionally left my computer behind. Yet, before I knew it, I had found a new world on the small screen of my tablet, and after being discharged, I started building apps with AI.

The times and the tools are different. My father created things with a pocket computer, and I encountered AI on a tablet. Still, it is similar. On a hospital bed full of restrictions, even though I should have been resting, I ended up becoming obsessed with the world of computers.

When I realized this coincidence, rather than being surprised, I felt a sense of warmth. It's what they call 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree'.

I was also hospitalized and doing something similar. Thinking about that, I think, 'we really are parent and child' (laughs).

5 - Things that continue

Now, my father has retired and is working in a vegetable garden. I made an app called 'Vegetable Garden Diary' for him. My father opens it every day.

What started with the MSX my father gave me has come full circle and is now something I am giving back to him.

I think what my father gave me was not the MSX machine itself, but the joy of a world that 'moves exactly as written' and the way he cherished his family. I am returning that to my father and my family in the form of an app. What started with my father passes through me and continues into the future. I think that is a pretty good story.

For me, a 'Like' on note is also a signal that says 'I read this.' It encourages me when you give a 'Like' to mean 'I read it' or 'I'm rooting for you'.