Back in the 1980s I was utterly inspired by Steve Roberts and his bicycle and machines. I so wanted to find a way to buy a Radio Shack Model 100 in the UK. Seeing the BEHEMOTH in the Computer History Museum was an incredibly moving moment for me.
Oh, and I kept the copy of Mondo 2000 where there was an article about him because the combination of him riding that crazy computer-laded bike and the whole Mondo 2000 aesthetic made me think something special was happening. The particular issue had this plus Richard Stallman, Brian Eno, Timothy Leary and William Burroughs. And Joichi Ito.
5th grade teacher told US about Steve Roberts & it was about all my adolescent mind could possibly handle. It was cool beyond cool. It greatly enlarged my idea of what the world & being an adult could be.
Computing with a keyboard integrated into the bars, & wired up with ham radio digital comms? And voice? And solar? On a bike? Greatest Of All Time. It was an early taste of the upcoming wearable and computing world.
Steve had some latter interesting "microship" projects, & rather more conventional boats. https://microship.com/
Yes i remember! Back in the 80s didn’t he document his journey and had a best seller . I bought that book. Was called “Computing Across America.” Started the whole digital nomad trend of trekking across long distances and blogging it etc etc. Hahaha I mean the guys bike had crazy inspector gadget type gadgets! Like a computer, a ham radio, a satellite link, and a fax machine of all things and then went 17k miles across the Us. totally rad for it’s time lol.
Oh, and I kept the copy of Mondo 2000 where there was an article about him because the combination of him riding that crazy computer-laded bike and the whole Mondo 2000 aesthetic made me think something special was happening. The particular issue had this plus Richard Stallman, Brian Eno, Timothy Leary and William Burroughs. And Joichi Ito.