Chapter 5: Music, MOSFETs, and Sunsets
© 1986 by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research Labs
Bainbridge Island, Washington
September 25, 1986
I suppose this machine really does look strange to people. I’ve been
living with it for so long that I usually see only a list of
uncompleted projects ranging from waterproofing to CMOS logic design.
But when I ride down the street, people gape, and the local media are
having a field day. Front page color in the Seattle Times; we're filming with PM Magazine this week. Ah, this
life of high-tech nomadics...
Of course, I deliberately frolic in that strange region where the
distinctions between technology and magic blur—where anything you say
will be believed because your looks alone overwhelm the senses. The
other day I was at the Streamliner Diner, immersed happily in a
flawless omelet and watching the crowd around the bike. A mother walked
by with her 4-year-old boy.
“Hi there, sonny,” I said into the handheld transceiver. Through
low-power 2-meter simplex, my voice was conveyed to the Winnebiko—where it crackled from
the console speaker. The kid froze, uncertain. He stared at the
machine, ready to cry if necessary. “So what do YOU want for
Christmas?” it asked him.
His eyes widened as his mother scanned the area to find the hidden
camera. “I want a train, and a bicycle, and...”
“A bicycle like me?”
The boy’s face lit up in pure wonder. “Yes.”
“Well, we’ll see what we can do about that.” His mother began tugging
him along the sidewalk. But he resisted long enough to gaze at the
machine and wave solemnly.
“Bye-bye, Mr. Bicycle.”
Of course, such play is only the beginning. Since the bottom line of
this venture is FUN, much of my development work centers upon system
capabilities that are not entirely aligned with that steely-eyed
business world that swallows up most otherwise well-intentioned
computers. Today saw the 68HC11 and its custom interface logic spring
to life—not all debugged yet, of course, but getting there. The bike
can now make comments in its synthesized voice, from “please do not
touch me” when it detects vibration, to “oh no... here he comes again,”
when a radioed touch-tone command lets it know that I’ve finished lunch
and am about to add my body to its 225-pound static load.
Hey, why not? Computers should be fun, shouldn’t they?
Speaking of fun, life on Bainbridge Island continues to be a mingling
of obsessive design work and pure pleasure. A few days ago Maggie and I
hopped on a couple of Octo Company’s resident mountain bikes—agile
machines with automatic transmissions, quite unlike the lumbering
megacycles we are about to call home. Off into the woods we went, into
deep green antiquity, whispering through silence so deep that our
clicking freewheels seemed as grating as chain saws. All around us were
the projections of past and future: long-dead trees sinking into the
forest floor below new growth sprouting green and perky into patches of
flickering sunlight. Yeah, thanks for the reminder... we’re just
passing through...
As a hint of approaching sunset pinked the sky, we emerged from the
woods onto Manzanita Bay and found a spot by the clear water. A sky
show was beginning, humbling us further, drawing us into a sweet
melancholy touched with awe. Dancing gold on the watertop, clouds
gilt-edged platinum, textures from the crystalline to the vaporous,
moment-to-moment changes too subtle to notice and too powerful to
ignore. This was a world-class light show, and I remember chuckling at
the memory of those dancing lights that held me enraptured night after
night, back in the strange 70’s. In this electric sky there was beauty
profound enough to tickle our lachrymal ducts and elicit soft moans of
sensual appreciation.
And there was more. We ferried to the City, upstream at rush hour,
smiling our way through a flood of grim commuter faces racing the clock
as always. We strolled to the Opera House and were suddenly surrounded
by the expert musical caress of Andreas Vollenweider and friends—jazz
harp, flutes, synthesizers and percussion. Perfect. The group explored
acoustical textures as grand and delicate as that sunset, raising goose
bumps, raising the roof, raising awareness. At the last standing
ovation, Andreas quietly spoke, “thank you.”
“No, thank you!” someone cried out, and the applause swelled again like
another onslaught of Olympic rain. This was not ordinary music, this
extended orgasm of sound; this was exquisite proof of Beethoven’s
insightful observation that “everything in music must be at once
surprising and expected.”
Ah, rhapsody, rhapsody. As the Road gets closer, I renew my resolve to
spend my life meeting remarkable people, seeking the pleasures of
growth and discovery, and smiling as much as possible. What an odd land
this is, where a bicycle loaded with computer systems can be a ticket
to exactly that. (As a British lady at Expo observed, while looking at
my bike: “Only in America!”)
See you next week. We’ll be on the island a while longer, and will then
pedal frantically south as winter begins its warning chill. I suppose
everything in my life is surprising and expected, as well...