A Little Computer Story

By Trevor Mulligan

I am typing this article on an Asus EeePC netbook computer. “What's one of those?” I hear you ask. I'll explain. Back at the start of the 21st century, some workers for Acer, another computer company, moved away and formed their own company called Asus. Similar names but with differing ideas.

By the by, Asus eventually created and marketed a very mini laptop computer. They called it the Asus EeePC 701. For marketing reasons, they later changed the 701 to 4G. We have the 4G version, which is running a lightweight version of Linux from a very small solid state drive (SSD), which (in case you don't know) is a type of hard disk drive without any moving parts and it has a single 512MB RAM stick fitted. Back in the early 2000s, SSDs were yet to catch on. We were all still using mechanical disk drives at the time. This machine, however, can be upgraded to 2GB of RAM or so I am reliably informed. I do have several 2GB sticks of RAM hanging about this house that I've swapped out from other laptops but, it is whether or not it's the same RAM that this machine will accept that's another thing entirely.

I purchased this little netbook new from Staples in Canterbury back in 2008 or 2009 for my wife Myra to use, in order for her to get used to using the larger laptop I had at the time. This little fella is simplicity to use and would have been the ideal machine for Myra to learn on. Unfortunately, though, when I purchased it, my timing couldn't have been worse. Myra's illness was just starting to balloon into a mutant version whereby all medication known to control it was having no effect. Not only were her legs and feet being affected but also her hands and forearms. She literally couldn't use the keyboard to type and her freehand writing was becoming more and more impossible until she could no longer hold a pen or pencil. And, for her, the use of a mouse wasn't, still isn't and never will be an option.

And so, the little Asus was put back in its box and I stored it at the back of one of our wardrobes. There it stayed for several years until I took it out again during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown, intending to either put it up for sale for a few quid on eBay or to take it to the nearest Cex shop in our town centre to see how much they would give me for it. It still has all original parts, the battery was hardly used and, being that it is running on a low-tech version of Linux, it runs reasonably fast for what is now considered to be an old system on an old machine. After thinking about it at the time, I neither put it up for sale on eBay, nor did I take it into the Cex shop. I kept the netbook and put it away again... until today.

In all the time that we've owned it, there were no 'how to' videos about this particular machine model on YouTube. But this morning I noticed that, in the past year, several YouTubers have been talking about them on their channels. Obviously, this interested me, as I am going through a phase — an epiphany, if you like — in my life where I feel the need to resurrect my old laptop computers by swapping them over to current versions of Linux to prolong the lives of these once-cherished machines. To quote from the late, great TV darts commentator Sid Waddell, each of my old laptops are currently experiencing "the biggest comeback since Lazarus". 

So, my next goal is to find and insert an appropriate RAM stick, to bring this Asus up to its maximum memory allowance. I am still not sure if I can upgrade the SSD, as after I unscrewed all the retaining screws, I can't get the panel off to look inside. That will have to remain a work in progress; what I also have to bear in mind is the size of SSD the machine might need owing to the fact that the dimensions of the netbook are only 9 inches by 6 inches and about an inch in depth! I will need to get the casing open first, though, before I spend out on a new drive. Only then can I consider updating the Linux operating system. 

Wish me luck!