Steve, Author at Nomadic Research Labs

This is an intense time. Overload is a common theme: the bike, that perennial focus of attention supported by sponsorship and publicity, sits mostly idle while I work full time on sponsorship and publicity. It is a terrible thing to be finite. Progress is occurring on many fronts, but only a few of them result…

During the heyday of BEHEMOTH, taking off from Silicon Valley in 1991 after an intense 3-year project, I made some interesting media contacts in addition to my own publication projects. I never actually filed any reports from the field for this new series produced John Crump, though we did do an excellent and thoughtful interview…

This posting in the Bikelab series featured a speculative tale of technomadic adventure that helped crystallize the vision of the bike systems. Even with specific references to long-obsolete products, it holds up decades later as a compelling geek fantasy. (The original post also announced my weekly open-house for Sun engineers, as well as the urgent…

The cardboard-core fiberglass packaging technique discussed here, originally suggested by David Berkstresser, has been such a popular subject that it long ago landed on its own page… even though it was originally part of this Bikelab Report. I’ll leave it over there for now and devote this post to the actual implementation of that space,…

Early in the BEHEMOTH project, we developed this “poor man’s composite” technique. Over the years it has been one of the most popular pages on my site, so I’ve moved it into these archives to be part of the timeline. Want to know how to build arbitrary structures cheaply, using corrugated cardboard, hot glue, and…

The bikelab series was starting to hit its stride, and this issue focuses on the BEHEMOTH power system… a huge and central part of the project. As with the others, this text languished for decades in a dark corner of my site, with no images to shed any light on what I was talking about.…

This second issue of the Bikelab Notes, published during my time building BEHEMOTH at Sun Microsystems, focuses on the high-brightness LED taillight assemblies. These were not commercially available at the time, so this was a hack. I also commented on the wonderful facilities that Sun provided and answered a few reader questions. This was an…

Factsheet Five was a marvelous publication, tracking the dynamic ‘zine scene back in the Olden Days. Mike Gunderloy published this labor of love, and it was an honor to be in it. He enjoyed the Nomadness journal, and in his Issue #39 he posted this little piece about my Issue #9 (the cover of which is…

While I was living at Sun Microsystems during the home stretch of the 3-year BEHEMOTH project, I started a publication series called the Bikelab Notes. Seventeen of these were published, and they carry some of the best technical details about the machine (since later media coverage was typically in the form of overviews slanted to…

This is a work-in-progress moment with BEHEMOTH, during the Bikelab epoch at Sun Microsystems. The original Zzipper fairing is still on the console (not the custom fiberglass one), and systems were still being built. I was creating all the bike documentation with OrCAD, which I absolutely adored… I still treasure the binder with drawings at…

Posts by Steve

Bikelab Report #6 – Various BEHEMOTH Tech Details

BEHEMOTH on KTEH Silicon Valley Report

Bikelab Report #5 – On-the-road Scenario

Bikelab Report #4 – RUMP Packaging & Cardboard Core Composites

Cardboard Core Composites

Bikelab Report #3 – Solar Power and Battery Babysitting

Bikelab Report #2 – the Sun Lab and LED Taillights

Nomadness in Factsheet Five 39

Bikelab Report #1 – BEHEMOTH Intro, HF Dipole, and Microwave Motion Sensor

BEHEMOTH at WESCON with OrCAD – 1990