Stomp, Aura, and Minions by Anakim the Abominable When I began the project of collecting literature from the IDUniverse, I began by negotiating with a rogue monk in a back corner of the Pit of Perdition for the three-volume set from Anakim the Abominable. I was excited when I got home, opening the box on…

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by Steven K. Roberts updated January 10, 2023 currently 27 pieces Latest updates: Gabriel does an IDU run with a smuggled VR headset, we turn up a 1934 pulp sci-fi magazine with a story from the Pit of Immolation, and we chat with Salvo the Unmerciful (author of Brutal Arrows). There is also a book…

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This article is my own theorizing based on a systems-engineering approach to neurological analysis. In other words, please note this disclaimer and don’t make life-changing pharmacological decisions based solely on this! I present it as a data point of possible interest to others affected by similar phenomena. (There is related subtext in the graphic above,…

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When the Microship project ran out of steam in 2002 after a decade of work, I had the urge to get on the water without any more complexity than necessary. Of course, that is a highly subjective subject, and with my technomadic affliction it would not do to merely hop in a kayak and paddle around.…

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By 2002, the Microship project was starting to feel like work… creeping featuritis, endless landing-gear refinement, and complex integration of electronics that we had developed so long before that the whole network side (originally done in FORTH on 68HC11 boards) was being re-designed with modern tools. I had started the Inside Microship book project, but there was…

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During the 12 years I spent in the woods of Camano Island, I took on a few essential battles. The one about roadside spraying was fiendish, and this letter was an attempt to depolarize a bit and get people to approach the subject with caution regardless of their political affiliation. by Steven K. Roberts Stanwood/Camano…

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This is a bit of a departure from the main content thread on this site, but is included in the interest of completeness. When I bought a house and built a lab in the woods of Camano Island, I unintentionally took on a very protective attitude toward that beautiful and fragile place… a slender slice…

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This is one of my letters to the editor of the local newspaper during my protracted attempts to scale back the careless resource-harvesting of Camano Island, where I lived for 13 years. This was mostly a time of total immersion in the Microship project, but protecting the quality of life was a major priority. The…

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During my 13 years living in the woods of Camano Island, Washington (house shown above), I became very protective of our forests and other natural resources… and found myself butting heads occasionally with developers and “cash for timber” logging businesses. Much of this was casual participation in the local environmental group (CARE – Camano Action…

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Microship System Architecture

This was the most substantial published Microship system architecture discussion, and still, decades later, reflects the basic design concepts underlying my machines. Although the hardware implementation is completely different, the model is the same: distribute low-power networked nodes throughout the environment and provide a means for anything to talk to anything (even cases not anticipated…

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