During the ’80s, I got into a kick of finding interesting computer applications in unfamiliar fields, then writing about them for my favorite magazines. Interesting stuff always happens at the boundaries between specialties, and this let me be a productive dilettante, surfing the knee of the learning curve without having to spend too much time…

Read More

After the Computing Across America phase (10,000 miles with the Winnebiko), I returned to Columbus to finish the book, deal with publishing hell, and resume freelancing. I rented an apartment, and really had no idea what would come next… but quickly found myself back in hand-to-mouth freelancing mode. An optical disc startup was just flickering to…

Read More

Dataspace by Steven K. Roberts Link-Up January, 1986 Packet communications technology is a marriage of computers and amateur radio.  The last time I signed on, I decided to go for distance. Sounds a bit strange doesn’t it? Physical location is usually irrelevant online, for the network is one of those vaporous places that is every place…

Read More

by Steven K. Roberts Information Today December, 1985 This industry has a serious problem. It’s called “marketing.” Selling information is not at all like selling widgets—this business offers intangible services that mean something different to every potential customer. Vaporous goods are hard to price and still harder to sell. The traditional marketing strategy among widget manufacturers…

Read More

Dataspace by Steven K. Roberts Link-Up December, 1985 If you have ever experienced the hiring process, you already know the problem. Hidden somewhere out there in the teeming masses are a few prize catches; scattered across the land are myriad companies who need them in their endless quest for the competitive edge. The process of…

Read More
Steve Roberts and Winnebiko at Maroon Bells - Jeffrey Aaronson, Aspen

I wrote this after the first 10,000 miles but before launching the Winnebiko II project, so it’s a nice perspective on my newly minted technomadic life, more philosophical than technical. The photo above is by Jeffrey Aaronson, taken at the Maroon Bells near Aspen on September 15, 1984. by Steven K. Roberts Link-Up November, 1985 I…

Read More

by Steven K. Roberts Information Today November, 1985 Powerful portables. Hi-res graphics. Macs. Microdisks. Much has happened since the prehistoric personal computer era of a decade ago, and more wonders lie ahead. What will the next ten years bring? Any exploration of future computer technology is subject to considerable uncertainty, especially now that we are on…

Read More

Written from the perspective of my first year on the road, this article in the annual Writer’s Yearbook (from Writer’s Digest) captures some of the excitement about new tools that we now take for granted. Not long before, I had been submitting manuscripts in the form of double-spaced sheaves of paper with 8×10 photos and…

Read More

My mission as a USA Today columnist during the Computing Across America adventure was to report on interesting ways that people were using computers… and this one was more of a departure than usual from my technomadic and networking focus. I also wrote about computerized cows in a short Online Today article in early 1986. …

Read More

I remember this event with deep fondness… I often used to joke during my high-tech bicycling years that I was “an agent of Future Shock,” and this is one moment that epitomized that. The world was changing fast, and the tiny microculture of online denizens danced playfully in a whole different reality than the one…

Read More