BEHEMOTH Memories
This post is a sort of interlude; Dervish is now rigged and is about to join Nomadness in the marina, and Polaris is complete enough to begin accepting a distillation of lab inventory. Lot of progress, in other words, but no compelling central story.
Instead, I thought it would be fun to present a couple of historical articles that have been in my media binders for ages, but just came across my desk in convenient machine-readable form thanks to my old friend Zonker Harris. Written by Mike Cassidy for the San Jose Mercury News, these capture the strange time between my cycling epoch and the transition to water.
First, from 1993:
CYCLIST PEDALS HIS VISION OF END TO COMMUTING
SOME things you should know about Steven K. Roberts:
He calls his bicycle BEHEMOTH, and like other bikes it has a light, a horn and many gears. It also is 13 feet long, weighs 580 pounds fully loaded, carries three computers -- a Macintosh and two DOS systems -- a cellular phone with modem and fax capability, an answering machine, CD stereo system, a ham radio, solar panels for power, and a satellite receiver that allows him to send and receive electronic mail anywhere and tracks his exact longitude and latitude. It has a security system, which will page him and dial 911 on the cellular if someone tries to move the bike without logging on.
"It can say, 'Hello. I'm a bicycle. I'm being stolen, ' " said Roberts, 40, who added that no one has ever tried to steal his BEHEMOTH, a recumbent bicycle, the low-to-the-ground sort that the rider reclines on. "I don't know what a cop would do with that information."
Probably scream and seek professional help.
Roberts' guiding principle is freedom, not as in freedom of religion or freedom of speech, but as in absolute, what-you-learned-about-in- philosophy- class freedom. He thinks a lot. He's pedaled more miles than most people drive in a year. He does not live anywhere. He does not work anywhere. He falls in love, via electronic mail. And he sees a world where commuting will be obsolete, a vision for which he deserves some sort of medal.
In short, he is a complicated fellow, different from you and me. He's different from me, anyway.
It is hard to say whether Roberts is a man ahead of his time, or whether his time is ever even coming. But it is also hard to find anyone these days who is living exactly as he or she wants to, and in that regard, Roberts comes mighty close.
He relies on the kindness of strangers -- well, not strangers exactly, but people he has encountered on electronic networks -- and the benevolence of 150 corporate sponsors who have given him gizmos, work space and ideas that he's molded into the priceless BEHEMOTH (Big Electronic Human Energized Machine, Only Too Heavy).
Roberts was in Monterey last week to give a speech. It's how he makes his living, along with writing books and articles and occasional high-tech consulting.
He is something of a celebrity in Silicon Valley, where he completed the last year of work on BEHEMOTH in a lab at Sun Microsystems Inc. in Mountain View. He is also a well-known member of the subculture that carries on transcontinental and international conversations and relationships via electronic computer networks. He has even become known among the more pedestrian who have seen his story in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Time, Newsweek and, of course, People; or heard it on National Public Radio, CBS and, of course, Donahue.
There is no question he knows people, or knows of them. From his electronic encounters, Roberts has built a Couch Circuit Management System that contains the names of 4,500 people who have offered a place to stay or other help. So, if he's in Toledo or Tucumcari, Tallahassee or Tulsa, he simply calls up a local map grid, finds the icon that indicates a willing host, clicks on it, and up comes the file detailing just what was offered when.
It has worked for 17,000 miles since 1983 when he chucked his house, his job designing industrial control systems and his life in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, and hit the road in search of fun and to prove a point.
"It should be possible to be where you want to be, " said Roberts, who writes while he pedals, with the aid of a series of shorthand keys on his handlebars, a head mouse and a small eye-level screen he can watch out of one eye. "An awful lot of people who are sitting in single-occupancy vehicles are just driving to work to sit at a computer, which doesn't make much sense."
Maybe not. But it would seem Roberts' life isn't for everyone. People who are uncomfortable staying with strangers, for instance, or those who like neat schedules or people who need people, for that matter. But what do I know? Roberts said he's never lonely.
"No, it's wonderful living on the net, " he said with genuine enthusiasm. "I have a very strong community there. What it feels like is wandering around my neighborhood and dropping in on my friends."
He said he's even fallen in love with the woman next door, electronically speaking.
"You just get to know somebody so well, " he said. "What you end up doing is having a rendezvous somewhere."
Interesting. Do tell about the time that happened.
"Which one?"
Roberts said he can't imagine a world without electronic mail anymore than he can imagine returning to his life in Ohio. But he is making some concessions. He hasn't been on a long ride with BEHEMOTH in nearly two years. Instead, he's hauling the bike around in a trailer pulled by a pickup, making speeches and appearing at bicycle shows and technology expositions. In fact, his life with the BEHEMOTH is coming to an end.
"I've gotten burned out on asphalt, " he said. "After 17,000 miles, the road is no longer interesting. I'm tired of being in a noisy, dirty environment."
Which is why he is building a high-tech kayak.
That was written right at the beginning of the Microship project, when it was still endearingly simple (indeed, based on a single kayak, before I started venturing into kayakamarans and beyond).
Three years later in 1996, when I was working on a 30-foot trimaran in the Silicon Valley lab sponsored by Apple Computer, Mike wrote this bittersweet piece:
FAREWELL BEHEMOTH, KING OF THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY
Steven Roberts is an analytical man who knew better than to become too attached.
Still, it was hard not to.
He and his friend, whom he calls Behemoth, had traveled thousands of miles together. If Behemoth did not save Roberts' life, he certainly sustained it. But Roberts always knew this day would come - the day to say goodbye.
Very soon, Behemoth, a 580-pound recumbent bicycle that Roberts packed with the computer power of a spaceship, will be history.
This isn't simply about a man and his bicycle. For while Roberts, 43, is simply a man, Behemoth is not simply a bicycle.
Behemoth is 12 feet long, carries a Mac and two IBM compatibles. Its equipment includes a cellular phone, a fax, a satellite transmitter and receiver, a ham radio, solar panels for power, a handlebar keyboard and a mouse Roberts can manipulate with his head as he rides. Behemoth also talks, with a heavy computer synthesizer accent, but it's talking nonetheless.
It was a glorious machine in its prime, which is not what Behemoth is in now. Instead, like an aging elephant, Behemoth has returned to Silicon Valley to die where it was born. It sits in a Santa Clara warehouse surrounded by Roberts' new loves: Faun Skyles, a 25-year-old human, and Microship, a 30-foot trimaran hull that Roberts and Skyles plan to pack with computers and launch in early 1998.
"I have very warm feelings for Behemoth, " Roberts says. "But there comes a point when you say, 'OK, I've done it.' "
Such is the peril of high-tech relationships. The bonds between people and machines are inevitably broken by the incredible pace of innovation. Silicon Valley is not a place for permanence, nostalgia or sentiment. Sure, Roberts has feelings for Behemoth, which in its current and two earlier forms carried him around the country for more than a decade.
"That changed my life, " Roberts said glancing at the idle bike.
But that was then.
In 1983, Behemoth was just the thing. That's when its prototype, the Winnebiko, carried Roberts away from the Midwest and his drab suburban existence.
"I was stuck in Columbus, Ohio, doing things I didn't like that much so I could buy things I didn't really want that much."
Roberts spent the next dozen years pedaling, using the Internet to make new friends and keep in touch with the world. He camped and stayed with those he met on the Net. He lived on free-lance writing, paid speaking engagements and computer consulting work.
He built and perfected Behemoth with the help of high-tech sponsors who donated gizmos and volunteers who donated time. He wrote a book.
And then one day, pedaling through Wisconsin along Lake Michigan, it struck him. Behemoth was through. It was time for the next thing. An innovation. A boat.
So, for two years, most recently in the Santa Clara warehouse, Roberts and Skyles have been assembling the Microship. They are outfitting it with four computers, video cameras to beam pictures to the Web, a satellite navigational system and a solar-driven power plant.
They have a ways to go, but one day they will sail. At best, the old Behemoth will tour Silicon Valley as an oddity at brown bag lunches. It is a fate Behemoth does not relish. This we know, because Behemoth said so.
"Big, stupid boat, " Behemoth croaked in its synthesized voice recently. "Steve. Steve, are you ever going to ride me again?"
Roberts had no answer. He simply kept about his work.
I know, we shouldn't anthropomorphize machines. They hate that!
So where are they now? The bike is in the Computer History Museum, where it belongs. The 30-foot trimaran was sold shortly after this piece was written, and I redirected development efforts toward an amphibian pedal/solar/sail micro-trimaran... which now lies idle in my lab here on Camano Island, Washington. After a brief rocketship interlude (sort of a Microship-on-steroids in the form of a Corsair 36 trimaran), I'm now working on moving aboard a 44-foot steel pilothouse monohull while my partner does likewise with a Cal 2-29, together forming the seed of the technomadic flotilla.
It's been a long and convoluted journey, but on one level it's just beginning!
Instead, I thought it would be fun to present a couple of historical articles that have been in my media binders for ages, but just came across my desk in convenient machine-readable form thanks to my old friend Zonker Harris. Written by Mike Cassidy for the San Jose Mercury News, these capture the strange time between my cycling epoch and the transition to water.
First, from 1993:
CYCLIST PEDALS HIS VISION OF END TO COMMUTING
SOME things you should know about Steven K. Roberts:
He calls his bicycle BEHEMOTH, and like other bikes it has a light, a horn and many gears. It also is 13 feet long, weighs 580 pounds fully loaded, carries three computers -- a Macintosh and two DOS systems -- a cellular phone with modem and fax capability, an answering machine, CD stereo system, a ham radio, solar panels for power, and a satellite receiver that allows him to send and receive electronic mail anywhere and tracks his exact longitude and latitude. It has a security system, which will page him and dial 911 on the cellular if someone tries to move the bike without logging on.
"It can say, 'Hello. I'm a bicycle. I'm being stolen, ' " said Roberts, 40, who added that no one has ever tried to steal his BEHEMOTH, a recumbent bicycle, the low-to-the-ground sort that the rider reclines on. "I don't know what a cop would do with that information."
Probably scream and seek professional help.
Roberts' guiding principle is freedom, not as in freedom of religion or freedom of speech, but as in absolute, what-you-learned-about-in- philosophy- class freedom. He thinks a lot. He's pedaled more miles than most people drive in a year. He does not live anywhere. He does not work anywhere. He falls in love, via electronic mail. And he sees a world where commuting will be obsolete, a vision for which he deserves some sort of medal.
In short, he is a complicated fellow, different from you and me. He's different from me, anyway.
It is hard to say whether Roberts is a man ahead of his time, or whether his time is ever even coming. But it is also hard to find anyone these days who is living exactly as he or she wants to, and in that regard, Roberts comes mighty close.
He relies on the kindness of strangers -- well, not strangers exactly, but people he has encountered on electronic networks -- and the benevolence of 150 corporate sponsors who have given him gizmos, work space and ideas that he's molded into the priceless BEHEMOTH (Big Electronic Human Energized Machine, Only Too Heavy).
Roberts was in Monterey last week to give a speech. It's how he makes his living, along with writing books and articles and occasional high-tech consulting.
He is something of a celebrity in Silicon Valley, where he completed the last year of work on BEHEMOTH in a lab at Sun Microsystems Inc. in Mountain View. He is also a well-known member of the subculture that carries on transcontinental and international conversations and relationships via electronic computer networks. He has even become known among the more pedestrian who have seen his story in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Time, Newsweek and, of course, People; or heard it on National Public Radio, CBS and, of course, Donahue.
There is no question he knows people, or knows of them. From his electronic encounters, Roberts has built a Couch Circuit Management System that contains the names of 4,500 people who have offered a place to stay or other help. So, if he's in Toledo or Tucumcari, Tallahassee or Tulsa, he simply calls up a local map grid, finds the icon that indicates a willing host, clicks on it, and up comes the file detailing just what was offered when.
It has worked for 17,000 miles since 1983 when he chucked his house, his job designing industrial control systems and his life in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio, and hit the road in search of fun and to prove a point.
"It should be possible to be where you want to be, " said Roberts, who writes while he pedals, with the aid of a series of shorthand keys on his handlebars, a head mouse and a small eye-level screen he can watch out of one eye. "An awful lot of people who are sitting in single-occupancy vehicles are just driving to work to sit at a computer, which doesn't make much sense."
Maybe not. But it would seem Roberts' life isn't for everyone. People who are uncomfortable staying with strangers, for instance, or those who like neat schedules or people who need people, for that matter. But what do I know? Roberts said he's never lonely.
"No, it's wonderful living on the net, " he said with genuine enthusiasm. "I have a very strong community there. What it feels like is wandering around my neighborhood and dropping in on my friends."
He said he's even fallen in love with the woman next door, electronically speaking.
"You just get to know somebody so well, " he said. "What you end up doing is having a rendezvous somewhere."
Interesting. Do tell about the time that happened.
"Which one?"
Roberts said he can't imagine a world without electronic mail anymore than he can imagine returning to his life in Ohio. But he is making some concessions. He hasn't been on a long ride with BEHEMOTH in nearly two years. Instead, he's hauling the bike around in a trailer pulled by a pickup, making speeches and appearing at bicycle shows and technology expositions. In fact, his life with the BEHEMOTH is coming to an end.
"I've gotten burned out on asphalt, " he said. "After 17,000 miles, the road is no longer interesting. I'm tired of being in a noisy, dirty environment."
Which is why he is building a high-tech kayak.
That was written right at the beginning of the Microship project, when it was still endearingly simple (indeed, based on a single kayak, before I started venturing into kayakamarans and beyond).
Three years later in 1996, when I was working on a 30-foot trimaran in the Silicon Valley lab sponsored by Apple Computer, Mike wrote this bittersweet piece:
FAREWELL BEHEMOTH, KING OF THE INFORMATION HIGHWAY
Steven Roberts is an analytical man who knew better than to become too attached.
Still, it was hard not to.
He and his friend, whom he calls Behemoth, had traveled thousands of miles together. If Behemoth did not save Roberts' life, he certainly sustained it. But Roberts always knew this day would come - the day to say goodbye.
Very soon, Behemoth, a 580-pound recumbent bicycle that Roberts packed with the computer power of a spaceship, will be history.
This isn't simply about a man and his bicycle. For while Roberts, 43, is simply a man, Behemoth is not simply a bicycle.
Behemoth is 12 feet long, carries a Mac and two IBM compatibles. Its equipment includes a cellular phone, a fax, a satellite transmitter and receiver, a ham radio, solar panels for power, a handlebar keyboard and a mouse Roberts can manipulate with his head as he rides. Behemoth also talks, with a heavy computer synthesizer accent, but it's talking nonetheless.
It was a glorious machine in its prime, which is not what Behemoth is in now. Instead, like an aging elephant, Behemoth has returned to Silicon Valley to die where it was born. It sits in a Santa Clara warehouse surrounded by Roberts' new loves: Faun Skyles, a 25-year-old human, and Microship, a 30-foot trimaran hull that Roberts and Skyles plan to pack with computers and launch in early 1998.
"I have very warm feelings for Behemoth, " Roberts says. "But there comes a point when you say, 'OK, I've done it.' "
Such is the peril of high-tech relationships. The bonds between people and machines are inevitably broken by the incredible pace of innovation. Silicon Valley is not a place for permanence, nostalgia or sentiment. Sure, Roberts has feelings for Behemoth, which in its current and two earlier forms carried him around the country for more than a decade.
"That changed my life, " Roberts said glancing at the idle bike.
But that was then.
In 1983, Behemoth was just the thing. That's when its prototype, the Winnebiko, carried Roberts away from the Midwest and his drab suburban existence.
"I was stuck in Columbus, Ohio, doing things I didn't like that much so I could buy things I didn't really want that much."
Roberts spent the next dozen years pedaling, using the Internet to make new friends and keep in touch with the world. He camped and stayed with those he met on the Net. He lived on free-lance writing, paid speaking engagements and computer consulting work.
He built and perfected Behemoth with the help of high-tech sponsors who donated gizmos and volunteers who donated time. He wrote a book.
And then one day, pedaling through Wisconsin along Lake Michigan, it struck him. Behemoth was through. It was time for the next thing. An innovation. A boat.
So, for two years, most recently in the Santa Clara warehouse, Roberts and Skyles have been assembling the Microship. They are outfitting it with four computers, video cameras to beam pictures to the Web, a satellite navigational system and a solar-driven power plant.
They have a ways to go, but one day they will sail. At best, the old Behemoth will tour Silicon Valley as an oddity at brown bag lunches. It is a fate Behemoth does not relish. This we know, because Behemoth said so.
"Big, stupid boat, " Behemoth croaked in its synthesized voice recently. "Steve. Steve, are you ever going to ride me again?"
Roberts had no answer. He simply kept about his work.
I know, we shouldn't anthropomorphize machines. They hate that!
So where are they now? The bike is in the Computer History Museum, where it belongs. The 30-foot trimaran was sold shortly after this piece was written, and I redirected development efforts toward an amphibian pedal/solar/sail micro-trimaran... which now lies idle in my lab here on Camano Island, Washington. After a brief rocketship interlude (sort of a Microship-on-steroids in the form of a Corsair 36 trimaran), I'm now working on moving aboard a 44-foot steel pilothouse monohull while my partner does likewise with a Cal 2-29, together forming the seed of the technomadic flotilla.
It's been a long and convoluted journey, but on one level it's just beginning!
posted by Steve Roberts | 12:34 PM
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