Who is Steve Roberts and is the Winnebiko Weally Wonderful? 32 years later, this brings back wistful memories. Maggie and I were traveling around the US the school bus, hauling cases of Computing Across America books and doing speaking gigs. We had pedaled 6,000 miles on both coasts, and were now rumbling through the difficult…

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Computing Across America ($9.95, plus $2 p&h) by Steven K. Roberts. Steven Roberts rides 10,000 miles across America, conducting business as a writer on a computerized bicycle. The book encapsulates his adventure. Contact: Computing Across America [obsolete base-office address redacted]

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I find this review most gratifying, and not only because the reviewer enjoyed my book. Michael A. Banks is a writer I’ve known and respected for years, and his Modem Reference was one of the most-thumbed technical books on my shelf… back before USB <creak>. He was a prolific columnist in the early days of personal…

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by Steven K. Roberts From Montana to Washington September 25, 1988 Listening to a sampler album, I am taken in by texture… only to be cheated time and again by fade-outs, false resolutions, and a sort of musical sleight-of-hand designed to leap from intro to outro without wasting a moment in subtlety. In the middle…

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Ever dream of just “hanging it up and heading into the sunset”? When Steve Roberts sold his suburban home and moved to an exotic high-tech bicycle, he set out to explore a new way of life — one that promised freedom, adventure, romance, and a “helluva lot of fun.” In Computing Across America, Roberts describes…

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This article by Alan Reiter really captured the technological intensity of early cellular phones… I mounted one on my bicycle in 1988, and became something of a celebrity for that alone. I remember riding the bike through Silicon Valley, and a couple on regular upright bikes passed me. The woman called out, “Look, honey, he…

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Portland, Oregon September 10-11, 1988 I appeared with the Winnebiko II in the Larsen Antennas booth at the ARRL national convention in Portland, and this photo survived the years. The fellow in the red tie is Larsen’s David Phemister WB7ESV, my primary contact there. His antenna-design wizardry was a huge factor in Winnebiko II and…

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I always loved visiting sponsors… getting to know my contacts face-to-face, taking plant tours, demonstrating the bike for employees, and doing a bit of local media to give the company some fresh high-tech human-interest PR.  This was a fun one, the maker of my favorite ham antennas, Larsen Electronics (now Pulse Larsen). The local paper…

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This was a ham-radio connection, made during the bus trip around the US after the publication of Computing Across America. We stayed with K0PP for a few days, and had the fun of connecting my 5-watt Ten-Tec Argonaut 515 rig to my host’s monobander and working a DX pile-up via QRP from a rare county…

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The first 10,000 miles of my adventure yielded the Computing Across America book, which I am about to re-issue for the Kindle. This is one of my favorite reviews… and was written by the prolific Michael Banks. Book Review by Michael A. Banks Computer Shopper September, 1988 Computing Across America by Steven K. Roberts Learned…

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