This is an unusual item, as it is under my byline. Usually I wrote for magazines, and the newspaper stories were by reporters. The excellent photos are by Janis Miglavs, taken in an Oregon coastal town in late 1986 while Maggie and I were pedaling down the west coast. The opening shot appears more sharply…

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Story by Steve Jones Photos by Bob Lynn Corvallis Gazette-Times November 4, 1986 Steve Roberts is a high-tech nomad. After a profitable but frustrating foray into electrical engineering, Roberts discovered he was working harder and harder and enjoying it less and less. Determined not to let the business run him, Roberts quit and started a…

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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…

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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…

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I published this book just before hitting the RESET button on the back of my head and taking off around the US on an open-ended technomadic bicycle adventure. It spun out of an article I wrote for Kilobaud called “Managing the Small System Environment,” discussing such things as related filing systems, backups, and other suggestions…

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My father, Edward H. Roberts, was a lifelong member of SPE, designing plastic parts and ice cube trays for GE Erie Works in the 1940s and moving on to household refrigeration (AP5) at Appliance Park in Louisville in the early 1950s. Among his effects was a small batch of treasures from the Society of Plastics…

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