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Conference noted::bicycle

Title: Bicycling
Notice:Bicycling for Fun
Moderator:JAMIN::WASSER
Created:Mon Apr 14 1986
Last Modified:Fri Jun 06 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:3214
Total number of notes:31946

1809.0. "Notes from the Bikelab" by ULTRA::WITTENBERG (Uphill, Into the Wind) Sun Dec 23 1990 17:48

I thought people might find this interesting.  I'm on his mailing list, so
I'll post these as they come  out.  These are copyright, and posted with
permission.  Feel free to forward them as long as you retain the copyright
and the terms he specifies (essentially that anyone you send them to
can forward them further.)

--David


 
 
---------------------- 
NOTES FROM THE BIKELAB 
Issue #1 -- 12/9/90
by Steven K. Roberts
----------------------
 
Copyright 1990 by Steven K. Roberts.  All Rights Reserved.
 
 
	IN THIS ISSUE:
		Introduction to the series 
		Brief overview of the BEHEMOTH project 
		Bicycle-mobile HF dipole antenna
		Microwave security sensor
 
 
	Welcome to the electronic edition of Nomadness!  This article
	has been sent to you because your name is on the Nomadness
	mailing list.  You may have requested this, or I may have just
	assumed you would be interested.  If you are NOT interested --
	or if you don't like receiving electronic bulk mail -- please
	send a note to wordy@bikelab.Sun.com and ask me to remove your
	name.
 
	I want to spend a moment establishing a context for all this,
	then dive into the details...
 
	First, this will be a more-or-less weekly publication, which
	will somewhat overlap the print edition of "High-tech
	Nomadness," but without the graphics <sigh>.  It will also be
	considerably more detailed and technical, and certainly more
	timely -- given the distribution method.  Sometimes it will
	doubtless contain material you don't care about... but that's
	the way with all publications.
 
	Distribution starts with an alias on my SPARCstation here in
	the bikelab sponsored by Sun Microsystems, and includes a wide
	variety of friends and fellow techies out in the Net.  A subset
	of this alias for more specific Sun-related issues is included
	(details of IPC board implementation on the bike, announcements
	of on-site bike demos, unix help requests, etc).  The text is
	also emailed to my Portal account for retransmission to the CAA
	area on GEnie, forwarding to other people not on the Net, and
	subsequent use in print media.
 
	Feel free to propagate, repost, or forward these reports, but
	be aware of copyright issues.  My interpretation of this is
	inspired by the author of the "copyleft":  you may freely
	distribute this as long as your recipients can.  And if you
	received this via someone who did just that, you can get your
	very own subscription by sending a request to:
			wordy@bikelab.Sun.com  
	or to any of the direct email addresses shown at the end.
 
	PLEASE DO NOT EMAIL ANYTHING to nomadness@bikelab.Sun.com or
	use the Reply command indiscriminately, since that will
	distribute your text to hundreds of time-conscious people out
	there in Dataspace!  If you have any comments or suggestions on
	the project, email me DIRECTLY and I'll respond likewise,
	perhaps including your comments in my next posting.  We must
	keep traffic volume down or people will start unsubscribing.
	Perhaps this will evolve into a newsgroup someday, but until
	then...
 
	Anway, enough fine print.  Let's get on with it!
 
				* * *
 
 
BRIEF Overview of the BEHEMOTH Project
--------------------------------------
 
	I had great dreams of starting this series with a complete
	description of the new bike system, now renamed from Winnebiko
	to BEHEMOTH (Big Electronic Human-Energized Machine... Only Too
	Heavy).  But the last time I wrote an overview, the file
	exceeded 50K.  Within Sun, I can distribute that file via FTP
	(once I learn how :-), but if you are Out There in Netland, a
	hardcopy of the backgrounder and a flyer on other publications
	can be had by sending $2.00 (to cover the pain and agony) to
	Nomadic Research Labs, P.O. Box 2390, Santa Cruz, CA 95063.  If
	you are on GEnie, it's free for the downloading in CAA (page
	320) main menu choice #6; on AOL it's in the MCM library.
 
	As you probably already know, BEHEMOTH is a computerized
	recumbent bicycle that is getting completely out of hand.  It's
	about 350 pounds fully loaded, carries a whole suite of
	networked computers, and provides extensive radio
	communications ranging from a robust ham shack to cellular
	phone modem and satcom.  It has a heads-up display, binary
	handlebar keyboard, and speech I/O.  It uses GPS satellite
	navigation for mapping and the highest level of security
	response.  It is becoming a unixycle, with an embedded
	SPARCstation for mapping, CAD, and file serving.  The GUI is
	implemented in a Mac Portable on the console, driving a trio of
	FORTH 68CH11s.  There's a Peltier refrigerator, linked by a
	fluid loop to a heat exchanger in the helmet for body cooling.
	Power is provided by 82 watts of solar panels, and a
	regenerative braking system.  It has something like 330 Meg of
	hard disk and at least 20 meg of RAM.  And so on.
 
	This project is obviously driven by passion, a recurring
	theme.  It's a blend of obsessions technoid and otherwise --
	and has been going on for 7 years.  I've already pedaled about
	16,000 miles around the US, and my tires itch violently... I'll
	be back on the road full time in July, starting in western Iowa
	with the famed RAGBRAI madness (10,000 people pedaling across
	the state) and then continuing on from there, somewhere...
 
	About 130 sponsors are making the whole thing possible, along
	with help from a wide variety of wizards, techies, machinists,
	engineers, gurus, friends, and consultants.  In a sense, I am
	only project coordinator, though I do end up soldering into the
	wee hours, coding, fiberglassing, hacking, staring at the wall,
	piloting the CAD system, fashioning widgets, cussing at the
	greasier jobs, and eventually, I hope, pedaling.  The point is
	that these updates should not be viewed as the techno-boasting
	of a solo inventor, but instead as a succession of reports on
	what this whole crazy industry can accomplish when the
	objective is high-tech adventure and the bottom line is pure,
	non-competitive FUN (though there may be a few commercial
	spinoffs).  I will also give hard technical data and access to
	vendors wherever appropriate.
 
	So.  Rather than maunder on for the next hour trying to give
	you a complete description of the system, I'll establish the
	pattern of this series up front:  focused commentary on
	whatever I happen to be working on at the moment, followed
	(beginning in July) by tales from the road.  But first, I
	suppose I should mention the basic design spec:
 
	BEHEMOTH, whether moving or parked, must provide maximum
	possible autonomy in power generation, computation capability,
	file storage, communication, navigation, and maintainability --
	anywhere in the world, all controlled via a flexible graphic
	user interface.  It must also be an elegant blend of art and
	engineering... and very comfy to ride.
 
	On with this week's details...
 
				* * *
 
 
Bicycle-mobile HF Dipole Antenna 
--------------------------------
 
	If you're into ham radio and have ever operated mobile, you
	know that it's not quite the same as flinging textbook-perfect
	wire dipoles into the trees or erecting a beam on a tall
	tower.  There are all kinds of variables:  imperfect grounds,
	effects of nearby objects, vehicle noise, impedance changes
	from wind-driven wiggling, etc.  Move to a bicycle and it gets
	even worse:  there's not much of a counterpoise to work with,
	making the SWR of a normal vertical whip at anything lower than
	15 meters unacceptable.
 
	I use a half-wave Larsen antenna for 2 meters, and will build
	stacked J-poles for the Microsats.  But the HF problem has
	bugged me for quite a while.  Stopping to erect wire dipoles
	works, but eliminates the fun of mobile operation.  Restricting
	activity to the high bands is unacceptable.  Making an
	effective ground plane, even on a BIG bicycle like this, is
	impossible.  And the spectre of RF dancing around in my
	microprocessors was almost enough to make me scrap the whole
	idea.
 
	The solution is an antenna that does not depend upon an
	external ground.  This boiled down to two choices:  a dipole or
	a loop.  The loop I tried is really quite an astonishing
	product -- the AEA IsoLoop, available for about $350 from
	Amateur Electronic Supply (800-558-0411) or direct from AEA
	(206-775-7373).  It is about 32" across, and carries a big
	black enclosure that houses an open-air variable capacitor
	driven by a stepper motor.  This is controlled from the shack
	via a little box (which could easily be hacked to run under
	software control), and requires constant vigilance since tuning
	is VERY narrow.  But performance is dramatic -- I've had the
	IsoLoop outshine a wire dipole on some bands, even when mounted
	only 10 feet off the ground.  This is an ideal choice for an
	attic antenna or someone with seriously limited space, but
	packaging constraints on the bike made it impossible for me.
 
	The dipole made of HF whips makes a lot of sense, and my first
	experiments were with a whole thicket of Hustlers
	(800-327-9076), using the shortened MO-4 mast and a little $8
	steel dipole bracket from Burk Electronics (708-482-9310).  The
	Hustlers are notably broader band than the IsoLoop, but do
	require accurate physical changes of tip rod position whenever
	retuning is necessary (as well as resonator changes between
	bands).  Though I maintained an effective sked for some time
	with these, the packaging problem got me again:  the complete
	system for 80-10 meters required 14 resonators as well as the
	two masts.  The back of the trailer would look like a
	quiver...
 
	It looks like I have found the solution, however, and yesterday
	morning's tests pretty well convinced me.  The antenna of
	choice is the Outbacker, made in Australia and available in the
	US via Outbacker Antenna Sales ($169 to $259, depending on
	model -- 615-899-3390).  This odd-looking thing is a
	brightly-colored fiberglass lance, either 4 or 6 feet long
	(mine are 4, the "Jr." model), studded with 8 female banana
	jacks in streamlined nacelles.  There is a "wander lead" that
	begins near the base, is coiled counterclockwise around the
	body, and is plugged into the socket for the band you want.
 
	This sounds arcane, but is really quite elegant.  I took two of
	the all-band 4-foot units and mounted them as a dipole atop the
	BYP (Big Yellow Pole) that rises from the back of the trailer
	(this is nominally 6 feet long, but can be extended to 12 when
	conditions permit).  No tuner or balun is required -- I just
	drive the array directly from my Icom 725 transceiver.  And
	performance is unmistakably HOT:  band changing is easy,
	bandwidth is quite acceptable with only occasional tweaks of
	the tip rods, and overall weight is minimal (sorry, I don't
	have a scale).  This morning's tests in the Sun MTV-4 parking
	lot yielded QSOs with 17 states and two provinces on 10 meters
	(mostly east coast), as well as easy voice and code chats on
	12, 15, and 40.  On 10 meters, anyone I could hear could also
	hear me, and signal reports were symmetrical even if they were
	relatively big guns.  I was running 50 watts from the bike's
	solar panels with the micro-dipole up 12 feet... and all in
	all, the experience was every bit as gratifying as ham radio
	should be.
 
	A future article in this series will detail the mounting scheme
	that will let the Outbackers and the stacked J-poles fold out
	from a tight cluster on the BYP.  Ham radio is becoming a very
	large part of this project, and a lot of the system engineering
	is devoted to making it effective in a variety of
	environments.  You'll be hearing more about all this as the
	weeks pass.  (N4RVE here, by the way, pleased to meetcha!)
 
				* * *
 
 
Microwave Security Sensor 
-------------------------
 
	One of the most common questions I hear about the bike, now
	worth somewhere near $1 million, is:  "Mah gawd, man, how do
	you LOCK that thing?"
 
	Well, I do have a cable lock, but it is seldom used.  Instead,
	there is a very robust security system that includes 7 levels
	of sensors, opens voice and data links to my backpack during an
	alert, and even beacons latitude and longitude on ham packet
	frequencies if the Trimble GPS satellite navigation receiver
	starts reporting changes in coordinates without the right
	password.  It can lock its own wheel, call 911 and deliver a
	synthesized message if it thinks it's being stolen, and even do
	a few things I probably shouldn't write about.  Like ham radio,
	security is a complex subsystem that will appear in these
	reports often.
 
	The most recent security project involved the "level-1" sensor
	-- a microwave doppler motion detector made by Alpha Industries
	(617-935-5150).  The model number is MSM10200, available direct
	as a developer's kit for $195.  With a power drain of only 10
	mA from a 10-26V source, this device provides a closure to
	ground in response to movement within its field of view (which
	depends on choice of antenna -- two come with the unit).  Four
	trimpots let you set sensitivity and other operating
	characteristics... and coverage of an unobstructed area out to
	100 feet or more is no problem.
 
	The motion sensor is very sensitive, but there was one catch.
	I want BEHEMOTH to know when someone has moved within 8-10
	feet.  This is not necessarily an alarm condition (consider a
	restaurant parking lot), but it can be... or it may simply help
	eliminate falsing of other sensors due to wind or rumbling
	trucks.  So how do we take a narrow 10 GHz microwave beam and
	turn it into a tight 360 degree pattern that surrounds a
	12-foot-long bicycle?
 
	Behind the seat of the recumbent, there is an area known as the
	RUMP (Rear Unit of Many Purposes).  This is reasonably central,
	including the trailer, and also one of the highest points on
	the bike.  The sensor is mounted inside the RUMP, with its
	feedhorn pointing straight up through a PVC fitting designed to
	interface a gutter downspout with 4" pipe.  This penetrates the
	fiberglass body, with a good seal to keep water out of other
	electronics in the enclosure.
 
	Glued into the downspout part is a PVC 4"-to-2" adapter, and
	inside that there is a copper cone made from Micaply (thin
	flexible PC board material).  The cross-section of the cone is
	90 degrees, and its apex is roughly even with the exit aperture
	of the microwave feedhorn.  Atop all this is a 2" cap, carrying
	the 7" yellow barricade flasher (see future story on the
	lighting system).
 
	Outdoor tests last week demonstrated that I got lucky (working
	with microwaves involves either great expertise on the subject
	-- which I lack -- or a healthy dose of luck).  The radiation
	pattern appears to extend 360 degrees from the RUMP, spreading
	24 degrees on either side of a horizontal plane even with the
	top of the seat.  I was unable to get close enough to the bike
	to touch it without being noticed.
 
	This output will be available to the RUMP Control Processor
	(one of the New Micros 68HC11 FORTH machines that handle all
	the real-time control) along with the UNGO system, optical
	sensors on all access panels, and various other inputs.  The
	action taken in response to an alert depends entirely on
	software, and will be the subject of a future story...
 
				* * *
 
	I hate to stop, but there will be plenty of other opportunities
	to do this.  No sense burning out on issue #1.  Next week, I'll
	tell you about making bicycle taillights out of high-brightness
	LEDs, a non-trivial task that was well worth the effort.
 
	Please write me DIRECTLY if you have any specific questions or
	comments (again, please don't reply to the nomadness alias
	itself).  Thanks for your interest in the project, and cheers
	from the bikelab!
 
 
		Steven K. Roberts 
		Nomadic Research Labs 
		P.O. Box 2390 
		Santa Cruz, CA 95063
 
		wordy@bikelab.Sun.com 
		GEnie, MCI, or AOL:  wordy
 
 
 
 
T.RTitleUserPersonal
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1809.1Issue 2, 12/16/90ULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindSun Dec 23 1990 17:49388
 
---------------------- 
NOTES FROM THE BIKELAB 
Issue #2 -- 12/16/90 
by Steven K. Roberts 
----------------------
 
Copyright 1990 by Steven K. Roberts.  All Rights Reserved.
 
 
	IN THIS ISSUE:
		A Booming Alias 
		Feedback and Questions 
		Snapshot of the Bikelab 
		LED Taillights 
 
 
	ROBERTS' LAW OF APPLIED MOBILE GIZMOLOGY:
	If you take an infinite number of very light things
	and put them together, they become infinitely heavy.
 
 
A Booming Alias 
---------------
 
	Well, this has certainly struck a chord!  As of this writing,
	367 people have responded to the announcement of reports from
	the bikelab.  This is gratifying, and a little scary:  now my
	blithe prediction of weekly publication has to be taken a
	little more seriously.  <gulp>
 
	You know, there is something subtle about this whole Grand
	Turing Machine project that I am just now beginning to
	appreciate.  I touched on it in issue #1 (where I commented
	that I am just project coordinator for the REAL wizardry that
	must be credited to industry), and it was brought into sharp
	focus by an article in the Oct 1 issue of EDN about Richard
	Stallman of the Free Software Foundation.  It spoke of the
	hacker ethic, which encourages cooperation and free sharing of
	information with the general intent of building the best tools
	possible, unhampered by legal constraints.
 
	I believe in this, but I've also seen the awesome power of
	competition.  It therefore seems that the best stance for me to
	take in publications about BEHEMOTH is to protect the
	intellectual property of my corporate sponsors, but otherwise
	disseminate the concepts and design details as widely as
	possible -- either for free, or in value-added form via the
	print edition of Nomadness <plug, plug>.  Industry has made
	this enterprise possible by contributing ideas -- and it's only
	fair for me to complete the cycle, so to speak, by freely
	sharing information in return.
 
	And this publication is the vehicle for that.  Enjoy, and
	please feel free to redistribute this without charge and write
	to wordy@bikelab.Sun.com with feedback and questions...
 
 
Feedback and Questions 
----------------------
 
	This regular column will present a few specific reader comments
	in each issue.  To maximize your chances of getting a letter
	published, please make your questions well-focused (I've had
	some that require about 10K of text for a cogent answer).  I do
	edit for clarity and brevity...
 
 
From Brian Lloyd of Telebit:
 
	Last time I spoke with you, I enquired about sources for
	recumbent bikes.  I find the riding position on standard safety
	bicycles too uncomfortable (I have a neck and back malady that
	causes problems with the head-up riding position).  I would
	like to construct a smaller version of your bike without all
	the features you carry.  I would probably limit it to a single
	processor, cellular phone, and two meters.  There has to be a
	way for those of us without millions of $$$ to accomplish some
	of the same things that you have.
 
	One other item: the product that we (Telebit) have recently
	unveiled will be of interest to you.  It is an IP router that
	establishes its link with the network using on-demand dial-up
	links.  Imagine that someone in the Internet needs to establish
	a session with your bike (mail, transfer a file, etc.).  They
	simply route the packet to one of our NetBlazers and it calls
	your bike via cellular phone. Likewise you can initiate the
	connection via CellBlazer from your bike.  Imagine having your
	built-in SPARCstation on the Sun network wherever you go but
	having the phone connection active ONLY when there is traffic
	going back and forth.
 
				-- brian@robin.telebit.COM
 
Brian...
 
	Wow!  I want one.  I'm rapidly getting addicted to the Big
	Network... these are some pretty powerful tools.  They are
	changing my expectations about how datacomm from the bike
	should work:  stopping at the occasional pay phone and plugging
	in the cups no longer seems particularly appealing.  The
	product you describe sounds like pure magic, and the ideal
	solution for this nomadic application.  Where do I sign?  (NOTE
	to readers:  We have since spoken and this looks like it will
	indeed happen... watch future issues for details.)
 
	As to the recumbent, a good approach is to contact Dick Ryan
	about the Ryan Vanguard recumbent.  It costs about $1,000 and
	is one of the best made commercial recumbents I have ever
	seen.  The company is in Malden, MA at 617-324-1921.
 
	Two other resources of note are the Recumbent Bicycle Club of
	America ($15/year to RBCA, 427 Amherst St., Suite 305, Nashua,
	NH 03063) and the International Human Powered Vehicle
	Association ($20/year to IHPVA, P.O. Box 51255, Indianapolis,
	IN 46251-0255).  Both have excellent publications.
 
				-- wordy
 
 
A brief comment on the bike's TCP/IP link from Courtney Duncan, N5BF:
 
	Yeah, Cellblazer-like things are leaving hams in the dust.
	You're going to be able to remotely mount just about anything
	in the world just so you can talk to me on e-mail about how to
	make an amateur 1200 baud twice-per-day satellite connection
	(that will only work after lots of trying).
 
Hmm.
 
Responding to my comment about starting the next journey with RAGBRAI 
(across Iowa in July), Chuck N6GAL inquired:
 
	Does this mean you're not starting the grand tour from here?
	Will there be no opportunity for those of us still chained to
	our desks to spend a few days riding with you?
 
Chuck...
 
	Actually, there will be some kind of shakedown in this end of
	the world before July.  I rode all the way to Sunnyvale last
	week to visit Trimble Navigation and do an open house with
	Ampro, and even that short flat ride demonstrated how badly
	I've gotten out of shape.  I'm planning a one-week loop to
	Pinnacles National Monument sometime in the spring, and
	everyone interested is invited... I'll post the details to this
	alias as they develop.  Hope you can come along!
 
				-- wordy
 
 
Now a power management question from Larry Fiedler here at Sun:
 
	I understand that you rip out the power supplies on the
	computers and use your own +5V supply from the bike.  Does this
	cause you any problems, or is it as straightforward as I think?
	I suppose you need to solder in a power switch.  Is there much
	voltage level fluctuation, and if so does this ever cause a
	problem?
 
Larry...
 
	Basically correct -- I run a raw +12 (more or less) battery bus
	throughout the whole bike, and then spot-regulate with
	dedicated DC-to-DC converters tweaked to each load (MAX638 for
	most of the 5-volt stuff).  It's hardware intensive, but
	maximizes conversion efficiency.  The switching is all
	electronic via FETs, under control of FORTH tasks in the 68HC11
	systems.  Another benefit of this is minimization of noise
	propagation -- trash in one area is not likely to become
	global.
 
				-- wordy
 
 
Finally, this from Joe Reed, N9JR, somewhere in Wisconsin...
 
	Thanks for issue 1 - it blew me away.  Sounds like a ham
	dream!  Now since you have the HF antenna problem licked, are
	you running PacketCluster and have you developed the ability to
	QSY to the DX spot frequency?  That might make mobile dxing a
	bit easier on a busy highway.  Depending on the transceiver you
	use it should be a fairly simple programming task
 
				-- 73, Joe N9JR
 
Joe...
 
	<grin>  Well, now there's an angle!  Actually, I'm not much of
	a DX chaser -- my pleasure in ham radio is making friends, and
	the frenzy of a pile-up seems to accomplish quite the opposite
	if you're not careful.  Being on the bike in strange places
	might put ME in the hotseat, come to think of it... and an
	endless succession of "QSL, you're 5-9 in Kamchatka, QRZed?"
	doesn't sound like much fun, especially if there's an
	expectation of QSL cards....
 
	Seriously, though -- automatic control of the transceiver (an
	Icom 725) is no problem... it all happens via a serial line
	reachable through the network by any of the console
	processors.  I'm sure some interesting applications for that
	will develop!
 
				-- wordy
 
 
 
Snapshot of the Bikelab
-----------------------
 
	I've had a number of questions about the project environment
	here, and before going into this week's feature tech article I
	think a quick description of the lab is in order.
 
	It's wonderful!  Sun has provided about 1200 square feet of
	windowless lab space in the relatively unpopulated MTV-4, along
	with all necessary hooks to the outside world.  The windowless
	part is not as bad as it sounds -- it keeps me from getting
	seduced by sunny days.  Lighting is a blazing array of
	FLUORESCENTS (inevitably, an acronym:  Fiendish Lights,
	Uniformly Obnoxious Retina-Eating Soporific Cylinders of Evil,
	Noxious, Toxic Substances), though I do have a few normal
	lights to soften things -- like now, when I'm bathed in the
	glow of a SPARCstation 1+ at 3 A.M., trying to push buttons in
	the right order while listening to jazz.
 
	The computer room is a cubicle in the corner, with three
	systems -- the SPARC, a Mac SE/30, and a generic 386 DOS
	machine.  Fortunately, the chair has wheels -- I use all three
	machines daily and am wearing a delta-wye-shaped path in the
	carpet.  A folding futon stashed under one of the worksurfaces
	gives me a break now and then.
 
	Next to the office is the machine shop, dominated by Cecil
	(Cecil be da' Mill).  This is a classic 1960 Rockwell knee-type
	milling machine I bought via misc.for-sale, and next to it are
	a grinder/sander, vise, and the other tools of a basic
	beginning machinist's shop.  I try to keep metal bits from
	sailing over the partition to mingle with the electronic ones...
 
	Along one long wall of the lab proper are four lab benches,
	astrewn with all the usual clutter of hardware hackerdom.  Test
	equipment -- scope, distortion analyzer, SCSI bus analyzer,
	power supplies, and the like -- is scattered around, along with
	various laptops and other development tools.  A variety of
	cabinets and shelving units spill over with inventory and far
	too many magazines, antennas lie about on the floor, a
	camping-gear area overflows one corner, and in the middle of it
	all is a 12-foot BEHEMOTH -- sometimes linked via umbilici with
	the benches.
 
	It's quite a playground, but I still have tire itch.  31 weeks!
 
 
LED Taillights
--------------
 
	One of the classic concerns about bicycle touring, for lots of
	good reasons, involves lighting and safety.  If you look at the
	situation statistically, it's terrifying:  even if only one in
	every 100,000 drivers runs over you, it's still going to happen
	eventually if you spend a few years on the road.  It thus makes
	sense to make every effort possible to be VISIBLE, and I don't
	mean just screwing on one of those dinky commercial bicycle
	taillights that runs on a few penlight cells.
 
	My overall lighting system consists of a 4" 20-watt sealed beam
	quartz-halogen fixed to the bike, a Night-Sun dual-beam unit on
	the helmet (with 8 watt flood and 30-watt spot), a yellow 7"
	highway barricade flasher behind the seat, a round bicycle
	taillight, and a pair of 2-section taillights on the trailer to
	provide steady-on, turn signals, and hazard blinkers.  There
	are also reflectors all over the place, an orange safety
	triangle on the back of the trailer, two gaudy flags, a couple
	of utility lights for the operating position, and possibly
	front turn signals if I'm feeling ambitious when I re-do the
	fairing.
 
	This article is about the taillights... how to make them bright
	and reliable while drawing a minimum amount of power from
	precious and heavy batteries.
 
	Recent developments in optoelectronics have made this possible
	-- with Hewlett-Packard (408-435-7400; Mark Hodapp), Stanley,
	and Ledtronics offering high-brightness LEDs with intensities
	ranging from 3 to 15 candela at 20 mA.  Viewing angle is
	relatively narrow (typically 7 degrees between half-intensity
	points), but otherwise they behave like any other LED, dropping
	about 2 volts and getting brighter for a given voltage as the
	ambient temperature drops.
 
	Many automakers, including Nissan, are using these for
	taillight and high-mounted stop light (CHMSL) assemblies -- for
	good reason.  Basically, why start with a lot of radiation
	(heat) that happens to include some visible light, then throw
	away most of the visible stuff to get red?  A typical single
	taillight bulb, like the GE 1816 I used for 16,000 miles, draws
	about 330 mA; a brighter LED cluster draws 50 mA.  The choice
	is obvious.
 
	BEHEMOTH now carries three LED taillight assemblies.  The
	simplest one is on the back of the RUMP (the fiberglass
	enclosure behind the seat) -- two parallel chains of 7 LEDs
	each, packaged on perfboard in a 2.5" diameter Peterson marker
	light assembly from an auto parts store (I just clipped out the
	original incandescent mounting hardware).  Ten of the LEDs aim
	straight out through the lens; four aim sideways to increase
	visibility from wide angles.  The fresnel-like lens adds enough
	dispersion to yield a very satisfying and bright light.
 
	The trailer lights are a bit more complicated, and are built
	into Peterson PM-13812 clearance lights, designed for two
	bulbs.  Each .7X1.4" perfboard cluster of 14 LEDs (top steady,
	bottom flash) is fixed to the body by Panduit foam mounting
	tape and a little spacer of lexan Thermoclear (very light
	double-wall glazing), and four wires are routed through the
	trailer wall.  A clean mounting to the curved trailer surface
	was achieved with a gasket of half-inch Poron cellular
	urethane, belt-sanded to shape.
 
	Electrically, we now have two LED clusters (each consisting of
	2 parallel chains of 7 junctions, totaling 50 mA) in each
	trailer taillight, plus the one on the bike.  Now what?
	Hooking them directly to a lead-acid battery bus would be a
	disaster -- voltage varies all over the map with temperature
	and charge conditions.
 
	The answer is a small controller board.  A major component is a
	little DC-to-DC converter (in this case, an adjustable-output
	"DC Battery Adapter" made for the laptop market by Product R&D
	at 805-546-9713).  I set this to about 13.25 volts, which
	remains constant over an input voltage range of 10-15V.  It is
	turned on via 1N5817 schottky diode switching whenever any
	light switch is activated that calls for LEDs (trailer tail,
	bike tail, hazard blinkers, or either turn signal).
 
	In the case of steady-on lights, that's all that happens:  DPST
	light switches source +12 to the supply and ground to the
	associated LED cluster.  But any of the three blink conditions
	power up another part of the board -- a 7555 CMOS timer with
	steering logic to let turn signals override blinkers.  This is
	set to about 1 second with a 50% duty cycle, and yields a nice
	stable flash, switching ground to the appropriate LED clusters
	via IRFD113 N-channel power MOSFETs in mini-DIP packages.  When
	a turn signal is active, the flash signal is also passed to a
	piezoelectric beeper.  (All electronic parts were from Halted
	Specialties in Santa Clara -- 408-732-1573).
 
	This circuit was a handy place to control the yellow barricade
	flasher, as well.  Originally, this light was a product from
	Bicycle Lighting Systems of Falls Church, VA (though everyone
	seems convinced I stole it from a construction project
	somewhere along the way -- I look like a roving hole in the
	road), and it came with a little 2-transistor oscillator
	board.  It worked pretty well, but is old, corroded, and
	generally un-hackable -- so the bulb is now driven by the
	opposite phase of my 7555 timer, giving the whole system a
	nicely coordinated look.
 
	Overall efficiency is excellent.  The CMOS is basically free,
	and the DC-to-DC converter costs about 260 milliwatts in
	exchange for about 1.2 watts to a pair of LED clusters.  Not
	perfect, but still well below the wasted power in the
	incandescent units (about 8 watts per pair).  In other words,
	we're getting brighter light, better aesthetics, a crisper
	blink, and much higher reliability for about 1/6 the power.
	Such a deal...
 
				* * *
 
	That's it for this week -- I'm trying to keep the length of
	these reports under control.  This week I'm off to Novato to
	pick up a printed-circuit-board milling machine from Instant
	Board Circuits, meaning quick-and-hopefully-easy prototypes
	direct from my OrCAD software.  I'll let you know how it works
	out.
 
	Cheers from the bikelab!!!
 
 
		Steven K. Roberts 
		Nomadic Research Labs 
		P.O. Box 2390 
		Santa Cruz, CA 95063
 
		wordy@bikelab.Sun.com 
		GEnie, MCI, or AOL:  wordy
 
1809.2#3, lots on electronicsULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindWed Jan 02 1991 13:57576
---------------------- 
NOTES FROM THE BIKELAB 
Issue #3 -- 12/30/90
by Steven K. Roberts
----------------------
 
Copyright 1990 by Steven K. Roberts.  All Rights Reserved.
 
 
	IN THIS ISSUE:
		Project Update
		The Emailbag
		Solar Power and Battery Babysitting
		The Brain Interface Unit
 
 
	ALERT:  Don't take the density of aluminum for granite!  It's
	tempting to throw unlimited aluminum at a project, thinking it
	light...  but its density is almost identical to that of
	granite:  2.64 versus the rock's 2.69.  A cubic foot of
	aluminum weighs 165 pounds; of granite, 168.  Bike parts, eh?
 
 
Project Update
--------------
 
	Two weeks have passed.  Most of you took off for the holidays
	-- the email and phone have been eerily quiet.  What have I
	done with this surplus of time?
 
	Hm.  One thing about a system this complex is that apparently
	trivial components -- the ones we take for granted -- end up
	monopolizing huge blocks of time.  Considering the fact that
	it's MY time we're talking about here, that 29 weeks left until
	departure is already feeling like quite a squeeze.  I did learn
	something useful about that during a recent visit to Trimble
	Navigation, though:  admiring the project organization
	represented by a giant D-size PERT chart, I complained that
	when I tried to use InstaPlan for similar purposes, it just
	turned into an intimidating graphic linear TO-DO list.
 
	"Project management tools assign resources to tasks," an
	engineer told me.  "In your case, since you're the only
	resource, it doesn't make any difference what you work on.
	Just DO something!"
 
	This obvious little bit of advice changed my life.  Duly
	inspired, I hustled back to the lab and got to work... spending
	the last couple of weeks on gasket-compressing latches and
	manpack tie-downs for the RUMP lid, OrCAD PCB software
	installation, Lemo environmental connector specification, the
	IBC BoardMaker learning curve, setting up the bike's new MIDI
	system, testing commercial audio amplifier modules with the
	intent of finding low quiescent power drain, probing the myriad
	trade-offs of battery charger design, working on the
	multi-platform SCSI bus architecture, and trying to get my body
	in shape with weights and a new sweat machine.  Presumably, all
	these except for the last one will eventually find their way
	into articles here, so let's get on with the mail...
 
 
The Emailbag
------------
 
John Chapin here at Sun writes:
 
	Are you set up so that I could drop by your lab occasionally
	and see what's going on?  Mostly to get a visual impression of
	all the neat stuff you describe in your newsletter.
 
	I expect a fair number of those 367 people are on the Sun MTV
	campus like I am, so I'll understand if you need to be
	organized about visitors.  How about some open-house hours a
	couple times a month?
 
John...
 
	Excellent idea... I'm planning on it!  I'll do a posting to the
	Sun-local nomadness alias when the time comes, probably
	sometime in mid-January.  (Oh, and it's now 434 subscribers,
	not counting reposts and forwarding.)
 
	Also, sometime just before departure, probably in early July, I
	will have some kind of send-off event, hopefully here at Sun.
	We're talking with a couple of bands, and will invite all local
	sponsors, media, Bay Area friends, and so on.  More on that as
	it develops!
 
This from Dave Webb at Tektronix:
 
	Steve Sergeant and I were discussing your plans for vertical
	handgrips in the steering of your recumbent, as an alternative
	to the conventional horizontal steering bar.  Riding
	frequently in the Oregon rain, I occasionally use the steering
	bar to pull my bike (a lightly modified Infinity recumbent)
	back underneath me when recovering from skids.  Is your vertical
	handgrip position in danger of compromising your ability for
	skid recovery?
 
	Since one can't effectively lift one's ass from the seat on a
	recumbent when trying to recover from a skid, the steering bar
	serves both to lever the bike into a more vertical position,
	and to help slide oneself sideways on the seat, allowing the
	bike to remain vertical if one has reacted quickly enough.  It
	seems that being able to lift oneself by the hands plays a part
	in these actions.  I don`t have good data on this, because I
	don't intentionally put myself into skids for experimental
	reasons.  However, it is fairly easy to get the Infinity into a
	skid, because there is very little weight on the front wheel.
	I've collapsed a steering bar once doing this.  The steering
	cables become much more like horse's reins when this happens.
	The cable to the unbroken side of the steering bar still worked
	(in tension, of course), and by leaning the bike to the other
	side, I was able to keep the usable cable in tension until the
	bike could be stopped.  After this incident, Infinity doubled
	the wall thickness of their steering bars.
 
	Another consideration in steering bar design is the effect of
	sideswiping, or being sideswiped by another vehicle.  The
	steering bar is the widest part on my bike, and is vulnerable
	to this.  Perhaps this is less of a threat to your new design.
	Please let me know the details.
 
Dave....
 
	Thanks for your thoughts on the steering... I've pondered and
	worried about it myself.  Original motive of the new design is
	to increase typing/flute-playing speed, and the configuration
	evolved from lots of thoughts about what happens when it falls
	over, where the grips hit, etc.  My one lingering concern is
	the movement of my body on steep climbs... might need a
	5-point harness to prevent wasting energy!  :-)
 
	I haven't had much experience with skids... very rare on a
	megacycle like this.  I'm trying to remember times when I put
	substantial force on the bars, and I honestly can't (with the
	possible exception of pulling when hill climbing to lock myself
	into the seat).  But width is an issue -- on a narrow Florida
	bridge once, my right shifter hit the back of a guy fishing,
	not only infuriating him and nearly causing an incident, but
	also driving me into the concrete wall and nearly wiping me
	out.  Narrower profile would be nice, especially in wrecks:
	the new steering hardware will be protected by small cages
	TIG-welded to the seat frame.
 
	I've always been a trifle uneasy about cables... they appear to
	offer an easier design solution that's nicely tweakable, but
	are quite limiting structurally.  The system has to be
	perfectly aligned for them to work properly, and is generally
	non-deterministic.  But the Infinity did feel pretty good to
	ride (Maggie had one during our trip down the west coast).
 
	I guess the real test of the new steering geometry is to just
	try it.  I know the human interface issues will be much
	improved (just having the thumb free to wander over a small
	panel and reducing internal tendon friction by removing the
	wrist twist make a huge difference in output data rate).  I'll
	report on what happens... the mechanical design is done and my
	machinist and I are chasing parts....
 
From Michael Johnston at Lehman Brothers:
 
	You wouldn't happen to have a digitized raster image of
	BEHEMOTH just laying around on your Sparc would you? In my
	minds eye I simply can't imagine just what a 12 foot long,
	self-sufficient, mobile communications bike would look like!
	By the way, I applaud your decision to go with the CellBlazer
	on the project.  I infer from your latest issue that you are
	relatively new to the net.  If you're going to be doing heavy
	Unix telecomm (or wireless SLIP for that matter) a CellBlazer
	is the only way to go.
 
Michael...
 
	No GIF files yet, but that's a good idea!  Maybe I'll hear
	from someone who has the facilities here at Sun to make that
	happen <hint, hint>.
 
	(NOTE to readers:  in subsequent correspondence, Michael
	suggested that I post my archives of road stories -- along with
	new ones and other files -- via 'netlib' directly from the
	unixycle.  This will allow anyone interested to access anything
	in the library via email... without having to FTP.  Ah,
	technology....)
 
Solar panels and power management are popular topics this week, and
the following two letters are responsible for the article that follows:
 
From Joe Reed N9JR...
 
	I am interested in your solar power generation system.  I would
	be interested in knowing how you handle widely changing light
	situations and how you generate power on the bike.  Spare
	nothing: power consumption calculations, estimated generator
	potential, design characteristics, empirical evidence.  Plus
	those things you have discovered and what you would suggest as
	improvements.
 
From Nicholas Schectman at Harvard...
 
	I've been getting regular reposts of your Nomadness journal and
	am wondering about the solar cells you mentioned in #1. You
	mentioned wattage (82, I think), but could you provide me with
	other info -- cost, weight, square footage, and supplier name
	particularly.  I have several applications in mind that could
	use lightweight (footage is probably less important) power: the
	most realistic (if the cells can be got in small doses) is
	recharging of the batteries I use for my bike lights now, but
	I'm also interested in running computers off solar, if it
	doesn't weigh too much.
 
 
Solar Power and Battery Babysitting
-----------------------------------
 
	This is a critically important part of BEHEMOTH -- the primary
	power source for everything except the wheels.  (Actually, they
	are solar-powered too, if you want to get philosophical about
	it... I am part of the food chain, after all...)
 
	From the very beginning of this adventure back in 1983, I have
	depended on photovoltaics.  The original Winnebiko carried a
	small 5-watt Solarex panel that charged a 4 amp-hour SAFT NiCad
	pack -- about right for the Model 100 laptop, UNGO box, CB, and
	basic lights.  The Winnebiko 2, on the road from 1986-88, had a
	pair of 10-watt panels (a lighter, newer Solarex design) and a
	pair of the same NiCads, later replaced with 10 amp-hours of
	Gates lead-acids to simplify management.  There were
	correspondingly more loads, of course, and the batteries were
	attached to two swappable buses to provide redundancy and
	improved noise isolation.  And the new system is up to 82 watts
	of PV's, with 49 amp-hours of main system batteries as well as
	a few others scattered here and there as required by
	particularly picky subsystems, all managed by FORTH tasks
	linked to extensive data collection and power-steering logic.
	Ah, bike parts.
 
	Let's see if we can do this without graphics.  First, the big
	picture:  there are three 15 amp-hour Sonnenschein Dryfit A200
	series batteries (12 pounds each <grimace>) aboard BEHEMOTH,
	two in the WASU (wheeled auxiliary storage unit) and one in the
	RUMP.  Electrically, they appear as one big battery, and some
	switching logic at the trailer-disconnect header lets the bike
	power bus continue uninterrupted if I go somewhere without my
	WASU.  This main battery has four charge sources:
 
		The 72-watt photovoltaic array that is the trailer lid,
		made up of four Solarex MSX-18 modules (each is about
		17x19" overall, with 14x18" active area).  Parallelled,
		these collectively produce about 4.8 amps into the
		12-volt battery in full sun, and are simply passed
		through a Schottky diode into the charge bus.  (Solarex
		is at 301-948-0202.)
 
		A 10-amp line-operated switching supply from Resonant
		Power Technology (408-982-0200), likewise
		diode-isolated.  This efficient transformerless unit is
		only 1.5x3x6" and has a jumper for 110 or 220 volt
		input.
 
		The regenerative braking controller, still under
		construction, based on a .5-horsepower 3-phase
		Semifusion variable-reluctance motor-generator that is
		the hub of the new front wheel.  A dedicated
		microprocessor controls this, and will extract power
		from the bike's momentum as a function of right-hand
		brake lever compression up to the point at which the
		hydraulics engage.  (Don't email me for details on
		this... let me get it working first!)
 
		An external cable intended to plug into the cigarette
		lighter of a motor vehicle, to let me "jump start" on
		cloudy days away from power lines when I'm not moving.
 
	Battery management takes place in two layers.  The first works
	whether processors are alive or not, since basing the health of
	such a fundamental system upon working software is dangerous
	indeed.  This is in transition (I'm currently testing competing
	products), but here's the basic idea:  a basic off-the-shelf
	solar charge controller intervenes when it thinks the batteries
	are full and does something to divert the incoming power.  My
	first pass was with a pair of Sonnenschein SR-50 regulators
	(203-271-0091), matched to the batteries and thermally linked
	to them via a thermistor.  The concept is simple:  terminal
	voltage reaches 2.3 volts/cell plus/minus tempco effect, and
	the two-terminal unit gets hot, shunting excess power into its
	finned radiator.
 
	Despite the apparent waste of this approach, it makes sense,
	and I integrated them into a larger system that uses
	hall-effect current sensors to monitor total charge current,
	total load current, and current discarded by the regulators.
	This allows the processor, if alive, to notice that power is
	being tossed and switch on an optional load, like the Peltier
	refrigerator.  But I ran into a problem -- the SR-50 is a 50
	watt unit, so I had to parallel two of them.  No two things
	electronic are ever perfectly matched, so in full sun at full
	charge, one would get hot and go into thermal shutdown, the
	next would quickly follow suit, then the batteries would take
	all the abuse of overcharge.  No good.
 
	Last week I installed a new ASC unit from Specialty Concepts
	(818-998-5238).  This is designed to intelligently track
	battery level, use pulse charging for increased efficiency, and
	protect the battery against overcharge by safely shorting the
	solar panels (it is a 4-terminal device).  The concept and
	execution are good and it works, but I objected to the 10mA or
	so of "dark current" that it drew from the battery when no
	charging was taking place.  I isolated it with a schottky
	diode, and since its sense line was no longer on the big
	"capacitor" of the battery, it went into an interesting 2.2 kHz
	oscillation that still seemed to charge effectively but no
	longer let me adjust the setpoint to anything predictable.
	(There was also some noise on the power bus that could be heard
	in the HF rig.)
 
	So now we're back to square one -- an obvious approach is to
	let the trailer-control processor simply do what it wants to do
	anyway:  disconnect the charge sources with big FETs whenever
	the batteries are full (adding hysteresis to keep oscillation
	under control).  But for simplicity and reliability, I'm still
	seeking a standalone dumb controller that can do the job even
	when computers are down, probably a larger version of the
	original shunt regulator.  <sigh>  Nothing is ever trivial.
 
	By the way, the choice of solar panels was a deliberate one.
	There are many to choose from, from heavy glass-covered units
	ideal for permanent installations to the flexible and
	much-publicized Sovonics flexible amorphous models.  The former
	are too bulky; the latter are too inefficient (and amorphous
	panels degrade at the rate of about 10-15% per year for the
	first 2-3 years of service, yielding a net output per unit area
	of about half that of silicon).  Of course, dollars/watt is a
	different story entirely, but the bike is more like the space
	program than a homestead... I want the best performance
	available, and hang the expense (well, there are
	Gallium-Arsenide space-grade cells that run about 22%
	efficient, but they are VERY expensive).  The solution was the
	Solarex MSX series, sold heavily in the marine market and
	robust enough to be walked on if laminated into a boat deck.
	Backing is aluminum, and the silicon semicrystalline chips are
	sealed in Tedlar -- overall thickness about .1 inch.  They have
	no frame -- just four grommeted holes for mounting.  I'm not
	sure of prices, but Real Goods carries them retail at $139 (10
	watts), $239 (18 watts), or $299 (40 watts).  If there seems to
	be a major nonlinearity in those prices, you're right --
	contact them for info at 707-468-9214 (you need their catalog
	anyway).
 
	Incidentally, solar panel packaging on a bicycle is not
	trivial.  Any amount of shading (over a few percent) will knock
	the output to zero -- I saw one bicycle at the Solar Expo and
	Rally in Willits, CA that had a small panel mounted
	horizontally on the rear rack, almost always shaded at least
	30% by seat and rider!  Keeping them horizontal is OK -- output
	falls off sinusoidally with the sun's angle, so steering them
	for optimum performance costs you more in aerodymic drag and
	mechanical complexity than it buys you in power.  It is good to
	keep them cool... the worst installation example of all is
	something I must admit with embarrassment from the Winnebiko II
	epoch:  one of the 10-watt panels was the top surface of my
	electronics bay... under a clear Zzipper fairing!  The
	greenhouse effect, particularly when the bike was stopped,
	could quickly elevate the panel -- and the electronics within
	-- to 140 degrees F.
 
	The solar trailer lid hinges on one side, using Hartwell
	quick-release hinges (714-993-2752) and a Southco E3
	vise-action latch (215-459-4000).  A cannibalized SLIK tripod
	leg swings down and lets me park the panel at any angle when
	stopped; and the whole assembly can be removed and cabled to
	the trailer via an extension cord when I'm camped and the bike
	is snug inside the porta-condo.
 
	Sharp-eyed readers will have noticed that I mentioned 82 watts
	of solar power, then talked about the quartet of 18-watt
	modules on the trailer.  There is an additional 10-watt module
	built into the lid of a Zero Halliburton 103X aluminum case,
	grafted brilliantly to the curved surface by metal-wizard Ron
	Covell of Covell Specialty Fabrications (408-438-4559).  This
	is the detachable manpack that contains the laptop, RF
	business-band packet data link to the bike, full-duplex VHF
	intercom, security components, and so on.  I like it to be an
	autonomous unit, so it has its own 4 amp-hour battery and local
	management.
 
	I also mentioned other batteries... a quick look at the power
	distribution scheme might be useful.  Generally, the 12-volt
	bus is distributed everywhere on the bike and spot-regulated
	locally as needed (in most cases by a little Maxim MAX638-based
	board designed by Dave Wright).  This is much more efficient,
	quiet, controllable, and fault-tolerant than having centralized
	DC supplies, and it simplifies dynamic load-shedding when some
	subsystems are not required.
 
	In the case of some units, however, like the Macintosh
	Portable, the manufacturer has already done an excellent
	power-management job that would only be thwarted by my
	efforts.   In these situations, I give the unit what it expects
	-- its own battery (the Mac uses a custom drop-in 6-volt
	lead-acid pack).  The main bus then simply serves as a charge
	source through a matched DC-to-DC converter.
 
	In a similar vein, there is also a charging station for all the
	little stuff -- the 9.6-volt Makita NiCads (I carry a drill and
	flashlight that uses them), up to 8 AAs at a time, and so on.
 
	Finally, there is the maintenance issue.  Via the Microswitch
	Hall-effect sensors (model CSLA1CH, very nice), there are A-D
	converters on the 68HC11 machines that can monitor all relevant
	currents and voltages -- plus little Acculex micropower LCD
	digital panel meters and associated thumbwheel switches in
	console, trailer, and manpack.  These allow low-level debugging
	without exploratory surgery if nothing seems to work.  (Acculex
	is at 508-880-3660.)
 
	As you can see from all this, power is one of the essential
	infrastructures of BEHEMOTH, every bit as important as the
	frame and gearing.  The massive amount of apparent overhead
	yields a robust and dependable substrate that allows new
	subsystems to be added relatively easily, just by setting
	device addresses for power switching, serial I/O, audio, and so
	on.  I'll keep you posted as some of the unimplemented
	components of the power management system take shape.
 
 
 
The Brain Interface Unit (BIU)
------------------------------
 
(first published in Nomadness, issue #9, Fall 1990)
 
	On the road, BEHEMOTH's bio-controller is always embedded in
	its modified Bell Tourlite interface shell, linked through
	visual, aural, and kinesthetic channels to on-board
	silicon-based systems.  I'd like to give you a brief overview
	of BIU functionality...
 
	Naturally, every effort has been made to maximize communication
	bandwidth with the neuron-based system inside the flesh-
	shrouded head assembly.  A 720 X 280-pixel display (Private
	Eye) presents an apparent graphic overlay upon the system's
	binocular view of the world, spectrally peaked at 720
	nanometers to minimize any ambiguity with reality and
	adjustable in apparent focus to minimize attention-switching
	stress.  A second visual sub-window is provided by a circular
	optical reflector mounted on the solar attenuation shield,
	giving the controller a steerable view of conditions aft.
	Optional visual attenuation filters can be installed under
	conditions of high solar flux, softening specular reflections
	while diverting airflow-borne particulates from the moist and
	delicate components of the image-acquisition optics.
 
	Both of the rider's aural channels are coupled to transducers
	that allow reception of synthesized human language, long-range
	bidirectional RF communication with others of the same species,
	alert messages, or any of a number of complex stereophonic
	wavefronts selected for relaxation, stimulation, motivation, or
	subjective time-compression purposes.  Note that these
	transducers are of limited bandwidth, but can be augmented by
	miniature units inserted directly into the auditory canals, or
	alternatively by high-power acoustical drivers located behind
	the entire brain packaging system.  Rider-initiated lexical
	utterances are converted into analog data by a boom-mounted
	input transducer, and are coupled through the audio network to
	speech recognition, recording, or communication subsystems as
	required.
 
	Due to the human visual system's insensitivity to infrared and
	other useful wavelengths, the BIU incorporates powerful
	directional parabolic light transmitters, with two different
	degrees of collimation to accommodate varying road conditions.
	This has been proven more effective than constraining the
	beam's axis to that of the bike, since the bio-system is
	capable of rotating the entire head assembly to center the
	region of interest in its visual frame of reference (which is
	not necessarily co-axial with the bike's current physical
	trajectory).  Whenever the system is traversing a region of the
	planet that is devoid of insolation, reflections of these beams
	from landscape features allow real-time decision-based
	navigation at normal velocities.  A future version will reduce
	power requirements by overlaying an image-intensification
	system upon the visual field, but this is not a standalone
	solution (since it is beneficial for other autonomous wetware
	systems -- especially those piloting petroleum-based land
	vehicles -- to recognize the presence of BEHEMOTH and take
	appropriate evasive action).
 
	The ability of the bio-system to track objects of interest
	through precise 3-axis positioning of the head assembly enables
	an additional level of interface with the on-board computer
	network.  Three 40 kHz ultrasonic receivers positioned on the
	BIU's crown and temples receive a reference beam transmitted
	from the console.  Pitch and yaw angles are derived from raw
	phase and doppler information, and are used by a dedicated
	processor to determine precise head pointing angle.  These
	data, in quadrature form, are converted to conventional ADB
	events and passed to the Mac, yielding an apparent link between
	the rider's nares and the on-screen cursor.  All mouse pointing
	is done with head movement; clicking and dragging are
	accomplished via handlebar contact closures antipodal to the
	data-entry keys associated with the user's phalanges.
 
	The BIU is designed to cushion the relatively delicate host
	organism upon occurrence of rapid deceleration associated with
	impact.  Should the human system separate from BEHEMOTH and
	become launched upon a divergent ballistic trajectory, the twin
	coiled cables carrying all interface lines will achieve full
	extension, actuating lanyard-release connectors.  This is
	designed to prevent abrupt cervical misalignment or separation
	in high-velocity emergency situations.
 
	Wetware temperature rise resulting from the accumulated losses
	of propulsion workload (exacerbated by the low thermal
	conductivity of the shock-isolating foam shell, especially
	under conditions of elevated ambient) can be controlled through
	a fluid heat exchanger closely coupled to the scalp and
	thermally pumped by a pair of remote 50 watt Peltier-effect
	modules.  Continuous bio-system hydration is managed by a
	second fluid loop via a small sip tube to be positioned next to
	the rider's speech output device (which doubles as the input
	port of the alimentary tract and twin oxygen-uptake units).
 
	Since the osseocarnisanguineoviscericartilaginonervomedullary
	system is essentially dependent upon fluid-evaporative cooling
	(despite significant augmentation by the heat-exchanger), there
	is potential for heavy accumulation of concentrated saline
	exudate within the BIU interface layer.  This is reduced
	through an absorptive accumulator that can be manually cleared,
	as well as a circumferential fluid-removal channel that carries
	waste coolant back to the occipital region and thence into an
	overflow tube.  These measures insure a minimum of irritation
	to the delicate ocular membranes under heavy load (the wetware
	information system, though only dissipating about 10 watts, is
	unfortunately dependent upon the same metabolic processes that
	support the bio-engine's fuel, waste, and heat management
	facilities).
 
	In short, the BIU is the key interface link between the
	BEHEMOTH and all aspects of its biological host organism.  It
	provides crash safety, cooling, hydration, sweat removal,
	visual graphics display, luminance attenuation, communication
	and entertainment audio, a voice control channel, a view of the
	road behind, a steerable light source, and a mechanism for
	hands-free mouse control.
 
	And I never ride anywhere without it.
 
 
 
Closing Notes
-------------
 
	Long one this time (how did that happen?).  A couple of
	quickies:  first, I told you wrong in issue #2 when I mentioned
	the wattage of the Night-Sun helmet lights -- information here
	suggests that it's 10-watt flood and 25-watt high beam.  The
	company can be reached at 818-790-7749 for more info.
 
	Also, on sources for high-brightness LED's:  I mentioned H-P;
	the other major vendor in this field is Stanley, based in
	Japan.  Their west-coast rep is AC Interface at 714-858-1866.
 
	Cheers from the bikelab!!!
 
 
		Steven K. Roberts 
		Nomadic Research Labs 
		P.O. Box 2390 
		Santa Cruz, CA 95063
 
		wordy@bikelab.Sun.com 
		GEnie, MCI, or AOL:  wordy
 
 
1809.3Packaging, CPSC compositeULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindTue Jan 08 1991 14:56537
---------------------- 
NOTES FROM THE BIKELAB 
Issue #4 -- 1/6/90
by Steven K. Roberts
----------------------
 
Copyright (C) 1990 by Steven K. Roberts.  All Rights Reserved.
 
 
	IN THIS ISSUE:
		RUMP Packaging
		CSPC:  The Poor Man's Composite
		Assorted Updates and a TV Appearance
 
 
	Art without engineering is dreaming;
	Engineering without art is calculating.
			-- SKR
 
 
RUMP Packaging
--------------
 
	RUMP packaging is something everybody thinks about at one time
	or another in their lives, and overweight BEHEMOTH is no
	exception.  The RUMP (Rear Unit of Many Purposes) is a
	cellulose-core, silicon-matrix, polyester-filled composite
	enclosure mounted to the Blackburn rack on the bike's rear --
	occupying the entire space a long-distance cyclist normally
	devotes to panniers and various lashed-on packs.  But all the
	usual touring gear lives in the trailer; the RUMP is the second
	of three major electronics bays.
 
	A quick overview:  the console, the most obvious repository of
	high-tech gizmology, is where most of the computers live.  It
	carries the Mac, the two main DOS systems, the FORTH
	bicycle-control processor, GPS board, head-mouse controller,
	modems and packet TNCs, diagnostic systems, Audapter speech
	synthesizer, Covox speech recognition board, RF datalink to the
	manpack, and so on -- in short, most of the computing and
	datacomm gear.
 
	The trailer (or WASU) is mostly for radio communications and
	power management, and the aft-most third of its volume is a
	commbay with flip-down door and operating table.  This is where
	the Icom 725 HF rig lives, along with the Yaesu 290 and 790
	multimode VHF and UHF transceivers for high-power packet and
	satellite operation, the AEA ATV unit, an audio filter, SWR
	bridge, antenna tuner, smart code keyer, cellular phone, and so
	on.  Since the lid of the trailer is the big solar panel, this
	is also where two of the three main batteries and all
	power-management hardware resides -- along with the trailer
	control processor to manage data collection, trailer security,
	cable minimization, audio routing, power control, etc.  The
	main antenna mast (BYP, or Big Yellow Pole) mounts on the left
	rear corner of the trailer, and the cellular whip emerges from
	the center of the solar array.
 
	The RUMP is in the middle, and has become a sort of nexus.  The
	BIU (helmet) whimsically featured last week plugs in here,
	along with the cable harnesses to console and trailer.  There
	are three equipment bays in the RUMP:  port, starboard, and
	main.
 
	The port RUMP-bay is where the SPARCstation will live, along
	with its hi-res LCD screen, 210 meg hard disk, CDROM drive,
	image processing tools, and associated interfaces (CellBlazer
	and local network).  The starboard bay is the refrigerator, a
	thermally-insulated space pumped by a pair of Melcor
	Peltier-effect modules -- taking advantage of excess solar or
	regenerative braking energy to cool my drinking water and, via
	a fluid loop, my head.  And the main RUMP-bay is what I've been
	working on all week.
 
	This enclosure (an integral part of the whole RUMP, but
	effectively a sealed space) carries the MIDI system (a hacked
	Yamaha DX-100 as well as a Casio CSM-1 and a Breakaway
	Vocalizer, all tied to the Mac via Apple's MIDI interface), the
	stereo amps and a pair of Blaupunkt speakers pointing at my
	head, the RUMP control processor, taillight controller, all
	major security system components including microwave sensor and
	UNGO box, paging system, the base unit of the Swintek
	full-duplex wireless intercom, an Ampro core-module stack for
	Private Eye control (on a LAN to the console), and the RUMP
	control processor to hold it all together and handle this
	site's audio and serial crosspoint matrices (replicated in
	console and trailer and linked by general purpose long-line
	buses).
 
	This whole unit is notched out to accommodate a Zero
	Halliburton case with solar lid, containing the laptop,
	business-band packet system, Icom dual-band HT, and other
	communication remotes.
 
	Now you see why the RUMP packaging is such an issue.  Here we
	have what essentially amounts to a fiberglass composite box on
	the back of a bicycle, subjected to rain, shock, direct
	sunlight, wrecks, sweat, and other forms of abuse that would
	give an industrial-control system designer bad dreams.  Yet it
	has to protect things as delicate as hard disks and CDROM
	drives.  (In case you're wondering, by the way, the Sony audio
	CD player and related stereo gear will live under the seat in
	its own enclosure for easy access... the NEC CDR-35
	dual-function CD turned out to be too sensitive for mobile
	audio use without extensive cushioning.)
 
	The floor of the main RUMP-bay is fiberglass-covered plywood,
	and it is bolted with stainless 1/4-20's down into an aluminum
	plate TIG-welded to the Blackburn rack.  A baseplate of .062
	angle-stiffened aluminum sheet is mounted to the floor via four
	shockmounts from Lord Manufacturing (essential tools for this
	sort of project -- catalog via 800-458-0456).  This is slowly
	becoming loaded with equipment, including one of the bike's
	three main Sonnenschein batteries (12 pounds) to allow
	uninterrupted system operation when on local rides without the
	trailer.
 
	But the internal stuff is pretty easy.  The hard part is
	keeping the water out, minimizing road noise amplification, and
	allowing at least a minor accident without having to do nasty
	fiberglass surgery.  Everything is gasketed, of course, a
	non-trivial problem in itself -- usually with EPDM rubber
	strips glued into all critical closures.  Gasket compression on
	the lid is achieved with Southco soft latches, lovely rubber
	assemblies that allow all sorts of imprecision while still
	looking clean and professional (Southco is at 215-459-4000).
	These are mounted with careful attention to the dangers of
	point-loads in fiberglass, and I machined in some adjustability
	slots with the aid of trusty Cecil.
 
	It's a bit hard to describe all this without pictures (which is
	why you should immediately hit a psychological control-S and
	send a $15 check to Nomadic Research Labs for the print edition
	of all this), but the manpack mounting introduces special
	problems of its own.  The idea here is to be able to grab it in
	a single quick motion whenever I leave the bike, and have with
	me a complete communication link back to the server, cellular
	gateway, security system, audio monitors, speech I/O, and so
	on.  This will let me turn my back on BEHEMOTH now and then to
	think about something else... but still be in touch.
 
	Two of the original Zero aluminum feet (which are noisy and
	rough on surfaces anyway) have been replaced by rubber ones,
	and the other two by little Z-shaped brackets cushioned with
	Permatex Color-Guard (a rubber dip coating often used for tool
	handles).  These are inserted into slots in the assemblies that
	make up half the RUMP-lid mounting system, the case is dropped
	onto its foam nest, and a single soft draw latch is used to
	cinch it down.
 
	The port and starboard RUMP-bay doors are a real problem, not
	yet entirely solved.  The original plan was for flush
	fiberglass doors, but the hardware overhead required to achieve
	reliable gasket compression was absurd.  The current plan is to
	mount a fabric bulkhead with riveted aluminum strips, with a
	hooded zipper providing flip-down access to the internals.
	This also allows addition of a pannier-style outer pocket,
	which will help absorb shock in accidents.  Fiberglass ALWAYS
	loses in an encounter with concrete.
 
	Finally, there is the problem of cables... entering the RUMP
	just behind my shoulders and leaving it down by the trailer
	hitch is the bike's cable harness, a rather bulky affair of
	various wire types all terminated by LEMO environmentally
	sealed connectors.  Again because of point-loading problems,
	these headers will be aluminum panels gasketed over large
	cutouts in the fiberglass.  Other fixtures that don't impart
	significant stress -- like speakers, the taillight, and so on
	-- require no special attention beyond sealing.
 
	It's a bit difficult to describe packaging details in a
	text-only publication, but I thought you might enjoy a bit more
	physical overview.  I get occasional letters asking what this
	looks like (and yes, there are two projects underway now to get
	image files that can be electronically distributed to anyone
	interested -- stand by!).
 
	Back at the beginning of this article, I mentioned that the
	RUMP is a cellulose-core, silicon-matrix, polyester-filled
	composite enclosure.  If you wondered what on earth I meant by
	that, read on.......
 
 
CSPC:  The Poor Man's Composite
-------------------------------
(first published in _Nomadness_ issue #8)
 
	Have you ever wanted to build a custom enclosure, oddly shaped
	structure, waterproof canopy, camper shell, or special box --
	only to be frustrated by the cost and effort involved in
	fabrication?  You know the scenario:  without facilities for
	this kind of work, you end up spending far too much,
	compromising your design with scrounged junk, or simply
	forgetting the whole damn thing.
 
	This is the mode I was in when designing BEHEMOTH's new trailer
	(or WASU, for Wheeled Auxiliary Storage Unit).  I knew what I
	wanted -- a lightweight, waterproof, aerodynamic structure with
	wheel wells, special flanges for equipment and antenna
	mounting, sealed access panels, a 72-watt solar lid, and so
	on.  But how would I build such a thing?  I even considered
	hacking up one of those hideous black plastic tool bins they
	sell for pickup-truck beds.
 
	I described the whole problem to Dave Berkstresser one
	evening.  Dave is one of those wizards who can sketch a dozen
	unique solutions to any mechanical problem that seemed
	impossible only moments before, and is the designer of the
	eccentric, agile, and swift Vacuum Velocipede human-powered
	vehicle.  He also did the CAD work on my folding console,
	machined the Private Eye mounting, designed the new steering
	system, and added various other artistic engineering touches to
	BEHEMOTH.  (As of this week, he's in the consulting business:
	for truly inspired mechanical design, call 408-257-2937.)
 
	"Build it with cardboard," Dave told me, taking a sip of beer.
 
	"No, seriously," I replied.
 
	"I AM serious," he insisted.  "Take a hot-glue gun, throw
	together your basic shape out of an old refrigerator box, then
	fiberglass over it.   I made a kayak out of cardboard once."
 
	The elegance of his suggestion was instantly obvious.  All
	sorts of structures ranging from airplane wings to transit
	boxes for delicate equipment are made of composites,
	structures that consist of two walls separated by a "matrix."
	Usually some kind of foam or honeycomb, this core is what keeps
	the thin walls at a constant distance and provides the
	dimensionality and moment that keeps them from collapsing.
	Some of these materials, such as Hexcel, are among the most
	high-tech structural materials available.
 
	And garden-variety corrugated cardboard is a close analogue!
	It is used everywhere you look for very good reasons:  it's
	strong, light, and cheap.  Covered with fiberglass, it's
	waterproof, good-looking, and stronger still.  And best of all,
	it is infinitely hackable... if you screw the design up, you
	can always scrounge more cardboard and brush on some more goo.
 
	Heh.
 
	Needing a name for this wonderful discovery, Dave and I puzzled
	for a while and finally came up with CSPC... or Cellulose-core,
	Silicon-matrix, Polyester-filled Composite.  And now, a few
	months later, I'm building BEHEMOTH's communication and power
	systems into a blazing-yellow custom trailer that looks like a
	cross between a '56 Buick and a solar-panel-encrusted
	satellite.
 
 
CARDBOARD CONSTRUCTION
 
	The first step in building anything using this method is to
	noodle over it for awhile, sketching and perhaps even making
	models until you know what you really want.  Then buy a
	hot-glue gun (typically about $15) and lay in a good supply of
	cardboard.
 
	A note here about materials.  Corrugated cardboard comes in all
	sorts of styles (never thought about this before, did you?),
	ranging from heavy thick mushy stuff to thin, brittle material
	that cracks when you bend it.  Somewhere in between is the
	right stuff -- look for a good stiff feel, thin walls, and
	consistent corrugations.  There's no reason to go with heavy
	cardboard for strength:   all we're trying to do here is hold
	the two fiberglass layers in a fixed relationship.  Get
	material that feels clean and light, and hasn't been walked on
	or creased.
 
	Now you can start construction.  Using a metal yardstick and a
	good sharp knife (X-acto or retractible), cut the pieces as you
	need them, being conscious of "grain" wherever you have to make
	a bend.  At every junction, run a bead of hot-melt glue, on
	both sides if necessary.  Don't let the glue glob up -- it's a
	pain to work lumps down to a smooth curve that won't bubble the
	fiberglass.
 
	There are a few tricks that make later work easier...
 
	First, fiberglass doesn't like abrupt sharp angles -- it will
	gap and leave ugly air spaces.  Don't make any angles sharper
	than 45 degrees, or any right angles with a bend radius of less
	than a half-inch or so.  You can usually get away with using a
	circular sander or rasp to brutally round the edges, but if you
	can add a long strip to break right-angle joints into a couple
	of 45s you'll be better off.
 
	Gentle simple curves, like the front of my trailer, can be
	distributed uniformly over a large surface by pre-bending the
	cardboard over a table edge, parallel with the corrugations,
	one step at a time.  By carefully creasing the material at
	every wave, it will hold a smooth curve -- though the inside
	surface will be rippled and cause lots of tiny air gaps.  It
	turns out that this doesn't matter much.
 
	Dave swears that he has made compound curves by carefully
	analyzing the corrugation pattern and making tiny, well-placed
	incisions with a sharp knife.  I find this astonishing, but
	knowing Dave, it's probably true.  Experiment.
 
	Edges can be messy.  They became in issue in two parts of the
	trailer:  the outside, exposed rim of the solar lid; and the
	edges of the long stabilizing strips that add strength to
	walls.  Details in a moment, but be aware that every exposed
	edge will take extra effort and try to keep them to a minimum.
 
	Don't create any situations where you won't have easy access
	later during the glassing process.  Over time, you'll
	intuitively recognize the behavior of the stuff, but for now
	just make everything as open as possible.  Really tight spots
	may be better approached using two or more parts that are later
	joined -- it will keep resin off your elbows, and probably look
	better.
 
	Once you have the cardboard structure intact, stare at it, play
	with it, and think through all the ramifications of the
	design.  It will be hackable later if you forget something, but
	it's a lot more so now.  If there's anyplace you will have a
	bolt compressing the surface, mash the cardboard flat or hog it
	out and fill with cloth so it won't collapse and loosen later;
	wherever there will be major stress, add reinforcement.
	Smooth off all the blobs of glue, round the corners (I did the
	outside edge of the solar lid by gluing on half-round pine,
	sculpted smooth on the corners), and mentally run through the
	glassing process.
 
	Like it?  Time to make it permanent.
 
 
CLOTH AND GOO
 
	When you go out looking for fiberglass material, you'll find
	yourself deluged with options (unless you go to the local
	hardware store, in which case you'll have too few).  In
	California, the best supplier is Tap Plastics (415-829-4889 for
	a catalog and info on local stores), and the personnel are
	quite knowledgeable about the fiberglass cloth and resins they
	sell.  There are a couple of basic choices...
 
	First, polyester resin versus epoxy.  Polyester is cheaper and
	much less nasty to work with, but is less strong.  Your
	application will determine which makes more sense -- I used
	polyester.  Also, be aware of the meaning of "surface curing
	agent" -- a waxy additive that seals the layup to help it
	cure.  Problem is, it also interferes with adding additional
	layers.  Avoid this entirely, and use structural layup resin or
	bond coat, not surfacing resin.  My personal preference is the
	thixotropic structural layup resin -- it's easy to brush on,
	doesn't sag or puddle, and cures quickly.  You'll also need
	catalyst, which is the highly poisonous Methyl Ethyl Ketone
	Peroxide.  If weight is critical, you can add millions of tiny
	air pockets by mixing "micro balloons" with the resin.
 
	Second, you'll need to select the kind of cloth you want.  This
	is very important, for it will determine weight, flexibility,
	cost, and appearance.  It's also very much a function of the
	job.  On the trailer, I used Tap "A" and "C" weight cloth, the
	latter being lighter (5.85 oz per square yard, .01" thick).
	Considering that your base material is cardboard, going with
	super heavy cloth, thick mat, or woven roving is generally
	overkill.  At the other end of the spectrum is light "deck
	cloth," which cures almost transparent.  Again, think through
	the project, decide where the stresses are and where you just
	want to waterproof the surface, then choose accordingly.  In my
	case, the trailer floor and lid structures are mostly "A"
	cloth, and the sidewalls are covered with "C."
 
	Other materials for the job are mixing cups (start with the
	graduated paper measuring cups, then once you get the hang of
	it you can switch to old tin cans), stirring sticks, cheap
	brushes, acetone for cleanup, paper towels, and scissors.  You
	also need to decide how you want to keep the stuff off your
	hands, and TAKE THIS ISSUE SERIOUSLY!  These chemicals have a
	cumulative effect when absorbed through the skin, and you may
	get away with sloppiness for years then suddenly develop an
	agonizing, lifelong allergic reaction to resin and catalyst.
	The homebuilt aircraft world is full of sad stories about
	people who sold their partially-built planes after careless
	habits made dealing with fiberglass impossible.
 
	When I started this project, I used rubber gloves and kept a
	bar of Neutrogena handy.  The gloves were loose and sloppy, and
	led to more of a mess than doing it barehanded -- but it took a
	while to develop techniques of dealing with the brush and
	mixing can (like always wiping at the seam so you know where
	not to touch).  After a few sessions, I abandoned the sticky
	gloves and tried to be careful, washing after every batch.  Now
	I use Glove Cote, which is a lanolin-based cream that's
	supposed to keep you safe.  I'm careful anyway.
 
	OK, ready to start?  Take the phone off the hook.  A batch
	under normal thermal conditions will only last about 10-15
	minutes, so you don't want interruptions.  Mix the stuff
	according to directions (around 5 drops of catalyst per ounce
	of resin, more if it's cold or you want a fast cure) and lay
	down a preliminary coat on the cardboard surfaces you'll be
	working on first -- this helps adhesion and is quite
	necessary.  When the batch starts to thicken, STOP -- it won't
	soak in, and will have the opposite effect instead.
 
	Now cut your first pieces of cloth and lay them on the
	cardboard, which should be tacky.  The wrinkles will brush
	out.  Start laying up the structure, adding layers where you
	think the major stresses will concentrate (corners, support
	points, etc).  This is where the art comes in -- after a while
	you'll just know how much cloth to use and how thickly to brush
	on the resin.  In general, you want to use just enough to make
	the cloth transparent, but not enough to puddle.  The strength
	lies in bonded cloth, not globs of brittle resin.
 
	Take successive passes at the work, never mixing more than 5
	ounces of resin or so unless you're covering a large area with
	a large brush.  Overlap the cloth by a few inches, and keep
	working at it until you feel that the coverage is complete.
	Notice the material's reluctance to take sharp bends... this is
	how you gradually home in on the constraints that affect the
	initial cardboard design.  On exposed edges, let the wetted
	cloth hang off -- don't  try to wrap it around.
 
	Finishing the edges is easy if you do this.  After it's all
	dry, you can slice the excess cloth with a sharp knife, then
	use a file to remove any sharp points.  It will look terrible.
	But now mix up a small batch of Tap 500 plastic filler and work
	it into the exposed corrugations with a plastic squeegee, then
	file and sand after it dries.  The result will be a smooth,
	waterproof edge that takes paint easily and completely conceals
	the truth -- that the core of this beautiful structure is an
	old cardboard box!
 
 
FINISHING
 
	How pretty do you want this?  If you've come this far, you'll
	have a rather ugly brown material, with lots of ragged overlaps
	and texture variations.  If the need is purely structural, this
	may be the place to stop.
 
	There are two ways to add color.  First, as I did on the
	trailer's underside, you can mix special concentrated pigments
	with the resin (I used black).  This in no way alters the
	surface texture, but it does hide the big Hotpoint logo which
	would otherwise show through the fiberglass.
 
	The other way is with paint, and this is another one of those
	areas where time, money, skill, experience, and luck all
	conspire to yield either beauty or a giant mess.  I did the
	trailer lid with yellow Copon epoxy paint and had all sorts of
	problems -- now I need to sandblast it off and try again.  The
	body is another story:  Maggie put her old auto-body skills to
	work during a full week of applying Tap 500 (like Bondo, but
	much more flexible) and sandpaper, finally perfecting the
	surface with glazing putty.  We then took it to Charles Tripp
	in Los Gatos, who did a beautiful job of spraying on DuPont
	Imron (a fiesty thoroughbred of paints, not for the poor or
	fainthearted).  The stuff is over $100 a gallon and can cause
	respiratory failure if you spray without breathing apparatus,
	but it looks great.  It's pretty, but is still a bit fragile
	when abused... and inside, where there is no bodywork,
	adhesive-based cable tie downs can easily detach a circle of
	paint.
 
	And there you have it.  The trailer, for a moderate amount of
	time and money, looks professional enough to prompt people to
	ask where I bought it.  I grin and tell them it's just some old
	cardboard boxes, glass, goo, and Impron paint, all mounted on a
	custom chrome-moly frame built by Rock Lobster and painted by
	Dr.  Deltron.  They don't believe me.
 
	I do have one final suggestion if you try this on your own
	structural fabrication problems.  Do an unimportant test
	project first to get most of the mistakes out of the way.  That
	first layup will seem awkward and messy, with the cloth
	buckling and resin dripping down your chin.  But give it a
	chance... it works!
 
 
Assorted Updates and a TV Appearance
------------------------------------
 
	In the continuing saga of power management, I have an update
	from last week's lament.  You may recall that I was complaining
	about finding a simple, standalone solar charge controller for
	the sealed lead-acid batteries (one that works even if the
	computers are all down).  I had objected to the Sonnenschein
	pair's uneven current distribution and the SCI's dark current.
 
	Thinking again, I've decided to stick with the SCI (the
	Automatic Sequencing Controller from Specialty Concepts --
	818-998-5238).  The dark current is 5.6 mA, which will kill my
	batteries in about 8,000 hours of dark storage (assuming a
	perfect world, lumped constants, and no self-discharge...).
	The unit is actually quite clever, and the fix for the
	oscillation was to simply eliminate the schottky diode and let
	it sit on the battery bus where it belongs.  It now switches
	neatly and quietly, harmlessly shorting the solar panels when
	the battery is at or above setpoint (and it doesn't care about
	the presence of other charge sources).
 
	In ham radio news, I did another Outbacker test last weekend:
	worked a sked on 40 meters, along with a nice handful of
	stateside stations, Japan, and Chatham Island on 10 meters.  It
	is very satisfying to do that bicycle-mobile, since one of the
	design specs for this whole thing is achieving near-100%
	probability of making contact with someone, somewhere, at any
	time from anywhere.  Piece o' cake.
 
	Finally, if you are in the SF Bay Area and would like to see
	BEHEMOTH and its bio-controller, tune into the new "Silicon
	Valley Report" show on public television KTEH, channel 54.
	I'll be doing a biweekly series from the road starting in July,
	and to help lay the groundwork, producer/anchor John Crump has
	put together a 5.5-minute intro piece filmed here in the
	bikelab.  The new series premieres this week; I will be on NEXT
	week at the following times:
 
		Jan 17 at 9:00 PM
		Jan 18 at 7:30 PM
		Jan 19 at 5:30 PM
 
	Back to a night of packaging and wrestling with balky
	adhesives...
 
 
	Cheers from the bikelab!!!
 
 
		Steven K. Roberts 
		Nomadic Research Labs 
		P.O. Box 2390 
		Santa Cruz, CA 95063
 
		wordy@bikelab.Sun.com 
		wordy@cup.portal.com
		GEnie, MCI, or AOL:  wordy
 
1809.4handlebars, securityULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindMon Feb 04 1991 14:24390
[I don't know where issue 5 is.  I'll post it if I get it]
---------------------- 
NOTES FROM THE BIKELAB 
Issue #6 -- 1/30/91
by Steven K. Roberts
----------------------
 
Copyright (C) 1990 by Steven K. Roberts.  All Rights Reserved.
 
 
	IN THIS ISSUE:
		Random Commentary on Matters Various
			Handlebars
			Handlebar keyboard
			Seat fabric
			Mobile R&D Lab
			More on security
			One last solar charging tweak
			Wiring harness update
		The emailbag
		CD packaging
 
 
	"...as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others,
	we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any
	invention of our own, and this we should do freely and
	generously."
		-- Benjamin Franklin, upon refusing a patent offered
		by the governor of Pennsylvania for his stove.
 
 
Random Commentary on Matters Various
------------------------------------
 
	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 in physical changes to the machine.
 
	Some of those fronts are pretty interesting, though... and in
	this report I want to bring you up to date on a variety of
	items.
 
HANDLEBARS
 
	First, you may recall from issue 3 the mail discussion about
	steering.  The question there was whether to stick with the
	straight bar under the seat or go to a much more elaborate (and
	comfortable, probably) assembly that would be more like tank
	controls -- with an articulated linkage of shafts and bell
	cranks to couple arm motion to a pair of opposing push rods.
	The primary motive was ergonomic, eliminating all twists of the
	wrists while adding more handgrip real estate for controls, and
	it also offered elevated WQ (Weirdness Quotient) at no extra
	charge.
 
	After having nighmares about the dynamics of emergency braking
	on bumpy roads and other risky situations, we're now back to a
	simpler system.  Dave Berkstresser has completed the mechanical
	design, and the aluminum stock and necessary end mills are in
	house.  Basically, this is an extension of the original
	under-seat steering... but done right.  Handgrips will be
	removable for service, and mount into the tube with expansion
	bolts such that they form about a 45-degree angle with the
	frame and tilt up slightly.  This should eliminate all
	pronation and wrist tension, which have slowed my handlebar
	typing in the past.  A pair of 1616 bearings embedded in the
	pivot assembly should make the whole thing tight and smooth,
	and actuation of the fork will be via half-inch stainless
	tubing and rod ends as before.
 
HANDLEBAR KEYBOARD
 
	I still haven't figured out quite how to mold the handgrips,
	but there's one major bit of progress in that department:  the
	"switches."  In the past, I used a variety of pushbuttons,
	rejecting the C&K's for environmental flakiness, trying and
	discarding a few surplus things, and eventually settling on the
	ON buttons used by Hand Held Products in the Microwand (the
	Fed-X bar code scanner).  These worked pretty well, and were
	waterproof.
 
	What I really need, however, is a software-definable switch.  I
	want to have some hysteresis... but I don't yet know how much.
	I want to have actuation force adjustable to taste.  I'd like
	to be able to experiment with using one for Morse Code (yes, I
	know the computer can do that, but it's fun).  And since the
	bike now has a MIDI system, I need to emulate the flute... but
	I'd like aftertouch information to make it more expressive.
 
	This is a lot to ask of a pushbutton switch.  But there is a
	solution:  Force-sensing resistors (FSRs) from Interlink
	(805-684-2100, Bill Yates).  Originally developed for music
	keyboards, these are made of two flat polymer sheets with
	interdigitating electrodes on one surface and some kind of
	"semiconductive" material on the other.  The harder you press,
	the lower the resistance.  They come in a variety of sizes, and
	the product line includes linear potentiometers and XYZ
	touchpads.
 
	The ones for the bike are about a half-inch square (with an
	active area that's half that), and will be bonded to the
	fingertip lands on the molded grip assembly, covered with a
	rubber keycap with just enough mechanical hysteresis to provide
	light tactile feedback.  A scanning A-D converter under control
	of one of the New Micros 68HC11 boards (or, possibly, a local
	PIC processor from Microchip) will monitor the resistances of
	all ten FSRs and pass the information on to the keyboard
	software.  Depending on the application, this will yield a
	character, a macro, a musical note, or anything else that may
	be relevant.  (A friend suggested using the aftertouch
	information to add emphasis...  squeeze hard to capitalize!)
	The nice thing about the whole approach is that it puts large
	unknowns into the TBDWL (To Be Dealt With Later) box (otherwise
	known as software).
 
	More on that -- and on the new chording scheme -- another time.
 
SEAT FABRIC
 
	A new seat panel has arrived, custom-sewn of black nylon mesh
	(Luna-mesh) by someone in Boston.  This has provision for the
	insertion of aluminum rods on both sides, which are then
	grabbed by about 50 cable ties to the aluminum seat frame.
	This method is cheap, easy to install, and quite pleasing to
	the eye.  And the cable ties, which can take 120 pounds each,
	are very reliable... IF black ones are used.  White ones
	degrade and fail from UV exposure within weeks.  I'm using
	Panduit this time around... tensioning them properly with a
	hand-operated GS4H installation tool.  (Panduit makes
	everything for wiring:  catalog via 800-333-4115.)
 
MOBILE R&D LAB
 
	This will be the subject of a whole article someday, but I've
	gotten some questions lately about what test equipment I
	carry... and the recent addition of a Fluke 87 Digital
	Multimeter provides the news hook.  A soft pack will contain
	the Createc 10 MHz digital oscilloscope, the Fluke, a logic
	probe, a spectrum probe, Ultratorch butane soldering iron,
	wiring tools, and a large tinkering stock of chips and other
	components.  Since I'm going to soft logic as much as possible,
	I also carry a BP Microsystems device programmer, a Datarase II
	miniature EPROM eraser, development tools for the Microchip PIC
	processors, and as much documentation on microfiche and CDROM
	as possible.  The hardware toolkit is not yet together, but
	includes a Makita battery-powered electric drill (with 12-volt
	charger) and a full suite of hand tools.  Unfortunately, Cecil
	has to remain behind... no room for a 900-pound milling
	machine on the bike.
 
	This new meter is remarkable.  Accustomed to the DMMs of
	yesteryear that measure AC/DC voltage and current, along with
	resistance, I was hardly prepared for the range of measurement
	tools built into one small rugged instrument.  The 4-1/2 digit
	Fluke 87 has an analog bar graph, performs min/max/average
	recording up to 36 hours, measures frequency and duty cycle,
	determines the forward drop of semiconductor junctions,
	measures capacitors, will display readings relative to a stored
	reading, and has ranges for all the essential measurements that
	almost defy comprehension (in conductance mode, for example,
	you can measure up to 100,000 megohms).  Seriously neat stuff.
	It's about 10 times the size of the teensy Soar meter I was
	planning to take, but has hundreds of times the capability.
	Hey, it's only gravity...
 
MORE ON SECURITY
 
	In issue #1 of this series, I mentioned the Alpha microwave
	motion sensor, which is integrated into the support column for
	the big yellow flasher.  That is the "level 1" alert,
	indicating that someone is within about 10 feet of BEHEMOTH.
	Other components are now coming together as well.
 
	The "level 2" alert is provided by the UNGO Box, made by Techne
	Electronics of Palo Alto (415-856-UNGO).  They did something
	unusual for an automotive product:  designed it for extremely
	low-power operation (I wish car stereo manufacturers would do
	that).  This surface-mount board accepts inputs from two motion
	sensors -- remarkable little units that were well proven during
	6,000 miles on the Winnebiko II.
 
	Essentially, each sensor is a blob of mercury with a 40 kHz
	field around it.  Any rippling or motion of the mercury yields
	changes in flux density, which are then picked off and filtered
	by sensitive op amps.  A settable threshold level then
	determines whether the disturbance is severe enough to issue an
	alarm.
 
	On BEHEMOTH, there is a 130 db siren -- but it is mostly useful
	to convince dogs that chasing me is not a good idea (it sweeps
	into the ultrasonic and is seriously obnoxious).  The typical
	response to a motion alert at this level is to speak to the
	perpetrator with the synthesizer while beeping me on the pocket
	pager (or calling me on ham radio) to let me know someone is
	touching the bike.  There will be much more on the psychology
	of BEHEMOTH-protection in a later issue... it gets quite
	amusing.
 
	The "level 3" security alert indicates that access panels are
	being opened or connectors unplugged.  (There are now
	microswitches on the RUMP and trailer lids, and more will be
	installed as enclosures are completed; loopbacks in all harness
	connectors provide feedback on unplugging.)  Levels 4-6 are not
	yet implemented, but are the seat switch, physical movement of
	wheels or steering shaft angle, and changes in GPS satellite
	navigation coordinates.  This last, without corresponding
	password, is a major red alert and the bike will attempt to
	emulate a 5-alarm fire while taking local steps to make riding
	impossible.
 
ONE LAST SOLAR CHARGING TWEAK
 
	You may recall the ongoing commentary about dark current and
	other bugaboos in the power management system -- I took care of
	that problem (while adding another potentially confusing
	"mode") by installing a Solar Disable switch betwen the charge
	manager and the batteries.  During long storage away from
	daylight, this will reduce the power leakage by 5.6 mA.
 
CABLE HARNESS UPDATE
 
	Wiring isn't a particularly glamorous part of the system, but
	it sure seems to be one of the major time sinks.  The harness
	was officially begun this week with the installation of an
	enclosed aluminum subpanel on the underside of the port
	RUMP-bay (about axle-level on the rear wheel, just above the
	trailer hitch).  This contains a 61-pin military-style Bendix
	connector for data, a Lemo waterproof RF connector for a remote
	antenna, and a 4-pin automotive trailer connector for the power
	bus.  In addition, there is a rubber-booted toggle switch that
	rearranges the relationship between local battery and load when
	the trailer is disconnected (with trailer, all batteries are
	effectively paralleled and managed as a group; without, I
	bypass all that).
 
	This subpanel is gooped onto the fiberglass, and a plastic box
	is mounted over it to keep stray DRAMs or tools from falling
	into the pins.
 
	"Those are the headlines -- now the rumors behind the news..."
 
 
The Emailbag
------------
 
The article on Poor Man's Composites in issue #4 generated considerable
mail, as expected.  Frank Lyon, via the Well, suggested some additional
local sources for materials:
 
	I really enjoyed your tale of fiberglass fabrication. I've
	built five windsurfers in the last 5 years starting from a
	state of pure ignorance so I've 'been there.' Cardboard sounds
	like a good low-hitec solution!
 
	Let me pass on a few resource tips:
 
	You should check out Monterey Bay Fiberglass in Santa Cruz
	(408-476-7464).  They have a complete stock of materials
	including the exotic Kevlar and graphite, and thay can give
	good advice.
 
	Also check Clark Foam (714-582-1031).  Besides being THE maker
	of surfboard blanks, thay make block and sheet foam, the
	hi-hitec way to do what you did.  And their tech literature is
	good reading!!  Try "SANDWICH CONSTRUCTION FABRICATION
	TECHNIQUES and RESINS, SAFETY EQUIPMENT, PROMOTERS, CATALYSTS,
	ADDITIVES AND MATERIALS GUIDE for some good bedtime reading :-)
 
	Kevlar has the best impact resistance and toughness of any
	fiber.  You should talk to HEXCEL in Dublin, CA (415-828-4200).
	They weave fabrics like S-Glass, Kevlar & Graphite so thay are
	a primary resource.
 
	Good luck with your projects!
 
In response to the piece in issue #5 where I sketched an on-the-road
scenario of life with BEHEMOTH, Ken Okin here at Sun offered a succinct
summary:
 
	Paradise for the techno-weenie!!!!!
 
Ken's got me pegged.
 
And Duncan Elliott from the EE Dept at the University of Toronto asks:
 
	What kind of trailer brakes do you use?  How do they couple at
	the hitch?  When you're going down hill and using the
	regenerative braking on the front wheel, are you in danger of
	jack-knifing?
 
Duncan...
 
	The trailer brakes are not yet implemented... awaiting tests on
	the Mathausers.  The plan is to tie them together at a surge
	linkage in the hitch, unless I can find a safe way to store
	brake-compression energy (not in batteries... they can fail).
	Jacknifing does not seem to be a problem -- I've had the
	bike-trailer combo up to 50.5, and that was with bike brakes
	only.  Of course, they were really lousy brakes.......
 
 
CD Packaging
------------
 
	Music is essential.  During the first trip, I carried an Aiwa
	cassette deck and later a Sony, plugging earphones into my head
	and listening to the same old 12 tapes over and over and over
	(at least when local FM had little to offer).  Occasionally I
	would stay with someone who had a good stereo, and I could
	record over a tape that had become particularly boring.
 
	On the second trip, it was the same basic problem, though I did
	double the size of my music library.  Still, it was a pain:  I
	had to go into "music mode" to listen to something, blocking my
	perception of other audio sources (including reality) with ear
	inserts and having to stop the bike to change tapes.
 
	Considering the motivational value of music, I've decided to do
	it right.  BEHEMOTH now has a Sony automotive stereo system
	with AM/FM, cassette, and shock-mounted D-180K CD player.
	There's a pair of 4" Blaupunkt speakers on the RUMP just behind
	my shoulders.  Headphones can be used as an option, but are not
	necessary.  And MIDI, video, Mac Recorder, cellular phone, ham
	radio, speech synthesis, and other audio sources can all be
	mixed under software control with the entertainment audio -- so
	I'm no longer stuck in a mode that cuts me off from
	communication and survival data whenever I need some jams.
 
	All of which will be discussed in more detail later, but
	there's one problem that concerned me right up front:  having a
	good stereo makes one wish for a good music library, and those
	are bulky.  How many CDs in jewel boxes would I be able to
	carry?  20, maybe?
 
	The solution is elegant, and anyone interested in portable CD
	use (or software distribution) should check this out.  A
	company in Dublin, Ohio called Univenture produces a product
	called the CD-Viewpak.  It is a soft clear vinyl sleeve, into
	which is bonded a layer of spunwoven polyester much like the
	liner material in a floppy disk.  This protects the active
	surface of the CD while leaving the printed side visible -- and
	the space behind the liner allows room for the insert
	describing the disk (to save weight and space, I just photocopy
	the cover page and leave the booklets and jewel boxes back at
	the base office).  My current library of 40 disks has been
	compressed from 16" of shelf space to 3" in the pack.
 
	Using a Cannondale racktop pack as an enclosure, the
	CD-Viewpaks will allow me to carry between 100 and 120 disks on
	the bike.  The weight is approximately 1/7 that of jewel
	boxes.  Univenture offers a number of variations on this
	theme:  the packs alone, wallets of 12, boxes of 70, or binder
	systems for shelf storage of a music library (or inexpensively
	shipping CDROMs with documentation).  For more info, contact
	Ross Youngs at 800-992-8262 or 614-761-2669.
 
 
Closing Notes
-------------
 
	That's it for this issue.  As you may have noticed, I missed a
	week:  I've been in a state of serious overload setting up the
	new business structure, trying to get issue 10 of Nomadness
	written, negotiating deals, seeking goodies, and -- oh yes --
	working on the bike.  I did take a much-needed break for a
	camping trip to Pinnacles National Monument, and was reminded
	while clambering over world-class vastness that somewhere under
	all this techno-gizmology are some very deep-rooted motives for
	travel.  Oh yeah... I remember...  As the countdown progresses
	(24 weeks), this becomes critically important.  It goes way
	beyond mere motivation and project management -- this takes
	unwavering passion and obsession...
 
	Both of which weaken under fluorescent light.
 
	Cheers from another Sunday in the bikelab!
 
 
		Steven K. Roberts 
		Nomadic Research Labs 
		P.O. Box 2390 
		Santa Cruz, CA 95063
 
		wordy@bikelab.Sun.com (primary internet)
		wordy@cup.portal.com
		GEnie, MCI, or AOL:  wordy (GEnie preferred)
 
1809.5Article from "The Economist"ULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindThu Feb 07 1991 14:4197
From the February 2, 1991 Economist (London):

                       Cyclogical Warfare

From a desk-bound correspondent


Buck Rogers might envy Steven Roberts his bicycle.  Not may pedal-
powered vehicles have a satellite navigation system, a word
processor, or the ability to fend off thieves with the bluff: "Do
not touch or you will be vaporized by a laser beam."  Mr. Roberts'
BEHEMOTH has all these and more.  It is the result of seven years
of tinkering towards the ultimate bicycle.  Along the way he has
attracted the amazed interest - and sponsorship - of some of
Silicon Valley's brightest engineers.

BEHEMOTH is a dream  inspired by boredom.  In 1983 Mr. Roberts was
living in Columbus, Ohio, as a consulting engineer and free-lance
journalist.  He was not happy.  So he loaded his portable computer
onto his bike to see if he could make a living doing what hew
enjoyed: cycling, writing and playing with electronics.  The focus
of these efforts was the "Winnebiko", his bicycle, office,
laboratory and obsession in one.

Some of Winnebiko's first innovations were aimed at helping Mr
Roberts to ride and write at the same time.  He built into the
handlebars a sort of eight fingered keyboard.  He sent his words to
publishers by modem, connected to telephones in motels or roadside
telephone booths.  For several years he lived quite happily,
pedalling 16 000 miles around America.  Two years ago he stopped
for a bike re-building rest near Silicon Valley.  What is emerging,
from a laboratory on loan from Sun Microsystems, is the BEHEMOTH:
the Big Electronic Human Energized Machine ... Only Too Heavy.

Together with its trailer, BEHEMOTH weighs about 160kg (350lb).
Much of that is packed full of electronics, including:

Communications. BEHEMOTH has a cellular telephone (inevitably) and
radio transceivers capable of reaching ham radio enthusiasts around
the world.  Both are adapted for sending computer data.  Mr Roberts
can check facts  in databases across the vast INTERNET computer
network, then send articles and correspondence via electronic mail
while he pedals.  The bicycle even talks to a navigation satellite
system, which enables it to fix its position to within about 15
meters (50 feet) at all times.

Computers.  A word processor is among the least of BEHEMOTH's
computing resources.  The bicycle's communication systems, lights
and other gadgets are controlled by another computer - though
instead of issuing instructions with a desktop mouse, Mr Roberts
points to his screen with an ultrasonic beam attached to hi helmet.
BEHEMOTH has a computer aided system for designing circuitry and a
full collection of computer programming tools.  Mr Roberts is also
working on a geographical database and mapping software powered by
a Sun workstation, which will take the bicycles position (from
satellite link) and create a topographical map of the road ahead.

Security.  To protect itself, BEHEMOTH has a six-layered security
system.  The first line of defense is a microwave detector that can
spot anyone approaching the bicycle.  Linked to a speech
synthesizer, the system automatically issues threats and warnings.
Although it cannot actually vaporize anybody, Mr Roberts reports
that - outside of Silicon Valley -  most people treat intelligent
sounding machinery with respect.  If push comes to shove, the
bicycle is programmed to call the police, and report its own theft,
giving its exact latitude and longitude.  Or it can deliver a
60,000 volt shock to the seat.

Power.  The power to move BEHEMOTH comes from Mr Roberts' own legs
pedalling through 54 gears.  On hills he must use low gears, and
training wheels automatically descend to help stabilize the slow
moving bike.  Electrical power for the gadgetry comes from solar
cells on the lid of BEHEMOTH's trailer, which recharge 12 volt
batteries inside.  Extra power comes from a system linked to the
front wheel which converts some of the bike's momentum into
electrical energy when braking.

Comforts.  BEHEMOTH has stereo sound and an on board refrigerator.
Coolant from the fridge can be pumped through the lining of Mr
Roberts' helmet for hot days and long hills.

Although his project can never be entirely finished, in July Mr
Roberts will return to life on the road.  After a warm up ride
across the flats of Iowa, he and his companion, Maggie Victor, will
resume a nomadic life of bicycling around America and, eventually,
the world.  Along the way they will publish a quarterly journal
called "Nomadness", and explore "the outrageous notion the very
soon now it might not matter where your body happens to be, as long
as you maintain a presence in the networks."

!----------------------------------------------!
! James Vorosmarti,                            !
! Computer Integrated Manufacturing Laboratory !
! Lehigh University, Pennsylvania 18015        !
!----------------------------------------------!

1809.6Issue #7 --- Notes From the BikelabCREVAS::ERICKSONJohn Erickson, DTN 232-2590Fri Feb 22 1991 12:28408
---------------------- 
NOTES FROM THE BIKELAB 
Issue #7 -- 2/21/91
by Steven K. Roberts
----------------------
 
Copyright (C) 1991 by Steven K. Roberts.  All Rights Reserved.
 
 
	IN THIS ISSUE:
		The bike on TV next week in Silicon Valley
		BEHEMOTH's network architecture
			Control structure
			Serial matrix
			Audio matrix
 
 
	"Dinosaurs are transitory, but pizza is forever."
	     --	The summary of a discussion between Dave
		Berkstresser and myself about human- versus 
		petroleum-powered vehicles. 
 
 
News Flash
----------
 
	BEHEMOTH will be on TV in the Bay Area again next week.  If
	you'd like to see the bike (this time a technical overview),
	tune into the Silicon Valley Report on public television KTEH,
	channel 54, any of the following times:
 
		Thursday, 2/28 at 9:00 PM
		Friday, 3/1 at 7:30 PM
		Saturday, 3/2 at 5:30 PM
 
 
Onward...
---------
 
	The blur of late-nights and frenzied days since the last report
	in this series has yielded a hinged mezzanine in my RUMP, new
	wiring harness headers, a really nifty mounting tower for the
	RUMP control processor, progress on the new seat/steering
	system, and countless little nudges of recalcitrant hardware
	toward the Road.  The ROAD.  It's out there through all this,
	teasing me:  the love of my life, an endlessly tempting thing
	of infinite promise, motivation for obsessive around-the- clock
	hacking.  Still, after all these years, I get a thrill from
	browsing the atlas -- a thrill not unlike the chest-tightening
	excitement of Springtime's first beach day.  So many roads, so
	little time...
 
	And so it continues, day after day, night after night, every
	waking moment devoted to this machine, the countdown at once
	relentless, terrifying, and thrilling.  With increasing panic,
	I look around the lab and wonder what will become of all this
	STUFF when I leave in 21 weeks.  Will I just pedal away without
	looking back, like I did from Columbus a seeming lifetime ago?
 
	Ah well.  That's not today's problem.  Today I'm making the
	final decisions in the critical path to running the cable
	harness, and therein lies a tale.
 
	
BEHEMOTH's Network Architecture
-------------------------------
 
	As you may recall from issue #1 of this report, one of the
	major design objectives in this project is autonomy.  Here's
	the quote:
 
	"BEHEMOTH, whether moving or parked, must provide maximum
	possible autonomy in power generation, computation capability,
	file storage, communication, navigation, and maintainability --
	anywhere in the world, all controlled via a flexible graphic
	user interface..."
 
	That implies a lot.  In particular, it means that the system
	architecture has to be general enough to handle new
	technologies, on-the-road replacement of inadequate components
	with better ones that may communicate differently, the
	integration of widely diverse products into a single system,
	and overall control from a single user interface.  Considering
	that even communication protocols known as "standards" often
	lead to interfacing problems, this is quite a demanding design
	spec.
 
	After pondering the problem for a while, the solution became
	obvious:  crosspoint switching.  Traditional network
	architectures require all nodes to share some common
	characteristics and generally behave themselves; a crosspoint
	matrix doesn't care.  I can run events at multiple data rates
	simultaneously -- even DC or analog sensor data if required.
	(Audio, since it's so pervasive on the bike, gets its own
	matrix with a few special characteristics including
	gain-setting on every line.)
 
	This issue of "Notes from the Bikelab" is devoted entirely to
	on-board communications and crosspoint networking.  Let's start
	with the control architecture itself....
 
 
CONTROL STRUCTURE
 
	There are three processors aboard BEHEMOTH that spend most of
	their time collecting data, managing power, babysitting the
	network, and generally turning all the low-level control
	cranks.  These are FORTH 68HC11s from New Micros in Dallas
	(214-339-2204), delightful little 2x4" boards that are
	I/O-rich, draw little power, require no fancy external
	development system, and are eminently hackable.  (If you want
	to play with FORTH control, there's a good deal afoot at the
	moment -- one of their customers disappeared after ordering a
	run of custom boards, and they're unloading them at $65
	each...  with the FORTH CPU, an RS-232 port, standard HC11 I/O,
	and 32K of SRAM.  This is a deal that's hard to beat.  Call and
	ask for Gary Harden.)
 
	Anyway, there are three of these -- the bicycle, RUMP, and
	trailer control processors (BCP, RCP, and TCP).  The former is
	the boss, and has two dedicated serial lines that are hardwired
	to the console ports of the others.  The BCP's own console port
	is connected to the Macintosh Portable, which presents me with
	a graphic user interface implemented in HyperTalk.  The value
	of all this is that I can take the Mac offline to other
	applications without affecting the behavior of the control
	system, and if necessary I can have full access to the
	controllers via the RF data link or cellular modem... using the
	FORTH command line just like the Mac does.  The control
	environment is thus fairly independent of other processes, but
	normally appears in graphic form on the Mac screen.
 
	Each of the FORTH machines controls its local site completely,
	almost eliminating dedicated cabling and random logic.  They
	handle all power control of local resources via FET switching,
	collect data as required (security, power management,
	environmental, navigation, etc), and -- most important --
	handle the entire communication network.  What appears in the
	harness in addition to dedicated wiring for a few key systems,
	then, are the sacred serial lines between the BCP and its
	mates, eight uncommitted serial lines that can be used by
	anything, and eight audio long-lines that are likewise
	uncommitted and assigned by software as needed.  (Yes, I
	carefully considered fiber, which has enough bandwidth for
	everything...  but the power required to run the hardware quite
	outweighed the copper of the alternate approach.)
 
 
SERIAL MATRIX
 
	BEHEMOTH has a number of devices that communicate serially,
	scattered from one end to the other.  In most cases, I have a
	pretty good idea up front who will be talking to whom, but the
	possibilities are very diverse and there will inevitably be
	surprises.  Consider a sampling of RS-232-speaking
	machines....
 
	SPARCstation, Macintosh, main PC, little PC, even-littler PC,
	the three FORTH machines, GPS receiver, speech synthesizer,
	various packet TNCs, fax/modem, Icom 725 transceiver interface,
	the MIDI environment, a shock & vibration data-collection unit,
	a possible satcom system, external laptop, BP device
	programmer, PIC development station, digital oscilloscope, and
	who knows what else.  For starters.
 
	To accommodate all possibilities, there are three crosspoint
	FET matrices, one located adjacent to the FORTH engine in each
	site.  Implementing these was considerably simplified by the
	existence of the Mitel 8816 chip (408-249-2111 in San Jose;
	407-321-9880 in Florida; 619-276-3421 in San Diego).  This
	device is an 8x16 analog switch array originally made for
	telephone systems, and it joins a family that also includes
	8x4, 8x8, and 8x12 devices.  You can get it DIP or PLCC.
 
	The 8816 basically consists of the FET array, supported by an
	internal 7-to-128 decoder and a latch corresponding to each
	switch.  If you want to turn on a switch, just write the
	address and a set on/off bit, and voila:  an X line gets
	connected to a Y line and stays that way until you turn it off
	or reset the whole thing.
 
	I'm planning to run RS-232 levels through the matrix, just to
	keep connection of packaged systems easy and minimize the
	potential for noise pickup.  There's an argument for doing it
	all at TTL levels, but last time I tried that (in a smaller
	version of the matrix on the Winnebiko II) it was a real
	headache everytime I wanted to add something new.  We'll see.
 
	The nice thing about this general approach is that relatively
	unusual stuff -- like MIDI and the LAN link between the Ampro
	286 and the core module that runs the Private Eye -- can pass
	through the network along with everything else.  And any system
	can talk to any device, something that is particularly handy
	with the Audapter speech synthesizer that can be used (upon
	scheduling by the BCP) to verbally report status, read me the
	mail, talk to an intruder, call the police, have a maintenance
	dialogue with me via ham radio, etc.  The BCP will set up each
	speech event with a string that defines unique vocal parameters
	corresponding to each computer, so I'll immediately know who's
	talking.
 
	Speaking of speaking, let's move on to audio...
 
 
AUDIO MATRIX
 
	When I started specifying the matrix components for the audio
	crosspoint system, the number of devices astounded me.
	Ignoring the electronic details for a moment, the overall
	structure consists of 8 uncommitted audio bus lines running the
	length of the bike, passing through two boards at each site.
	One board can pipe any of 16 inputs to any bus; the other
	connects any bus to any of 16 outputs.  Amplifiers on the
	inputs and outputs allow matching to the very wide range of
	"sources" and "sinks" scattered around the bike.
 
	For your amusement, here's the current complete list of audio
	devices that are networked together via this system (input is
	defined as input to the network):
 
AXIC (audio crosspoint input console)
	Audapter speech synthesizer
	Mac speaker left
	Mac speaker right
	Covox speech board output
	Multimode TNC radio 1
	Multimode TNC radio 2
	Console 2-meter transceiver speaker
	Speaker-mic (plug-in)
	Main PC speaker output
	T1000 speaker output
	DTMF transceiver
 
AXOC (audio crosspoint output console)
	Voice Navigator II
	Mac Recorder
	Covox input
	Multimode TNC radio 1
	Multimode TNC radio 2
	Console 2-meter transceiver mic
	Speaker-mic (plug-in)
	DTMX transceiver
 
AXIR (audio crosspoint input RUMP)
	Casio CSM-1 MIDI left
	Casio CSM-1 MIDI right
	DX100 synth left
	DX100 synth right
	Setcom helmet mic
	Ambient mic
	Cassette out left
	Cassette out right
	Equalizer module left
	Equalizer module right
	HUD PC speaker
	CD player left
	CD player right
	AM-FM-SW left
	AM-FM-SW right
 
AXOR (audio crosspoint output RUMP)
	Yamaha stereo amp left
	Yamaha stereo amp right
	Small amp module left
	Small amp module right
	Helmet speaker left
	Helmet speaker right
	Cassette input left
	Cassette input right
	Equalizer module left
	Equalizer module right
 
AXIT (audio crosspoint input trailer)
	Icom 725 HF transceiver
	Yaesu 290 2-meter multimode transceiver
	Yaesu 790 70-cm multimode transceiver
	AEA ATV transceiver
	Audio filter module
	Cellular phone speaker
	TNC-1
	TNC-2
	Swintek wireless intercom
	CB
	Local microphone (commbay)
 
AXOT (audio crosspoint output trailer)
	Icom 725 HF transceiver
	Yaesu 290 2-meter multimode transceiver
	Yaesu 790 70-cm multimode transceiver
	AEA ATV transceiver
	Audio filter module
	Cellular phone mic
	TNC-1
	TNC-2
	Swintek wireless intercom
	CB
	Local speaker/headphone
 
 
	(Hope I'm not boring you with details -- enjoy them now,
	because after July 15 you'll be hearing instead about hot
	sweat, fleeting encounters, bizarre humans, strange events,
	technoid adventures on the road, campground hacking, ham radio
	exploits, and so on.  Wonder how the demographics of the
	nomadness alias will shift over time as some people bail out
	and others say, "ah, finally"?)
 
	Anyway, these crosspoint boards are currently being
	schematic-captured in OrCAD by Steve Sergeant, who is the audio
	wizard behind all the amplifier circuitry.  These will be the
	first components milled on the new Boardmaker from Instant
	Board Circuits, which will take the Gerber file from OrCAD and
	literally carve away unwanted copper to yield a double-sided
	board.  (IBC is at 415-883-1717 -- ask for Suzanne.)
 
	Steve's preliminary tests suggest that even though I'm not
	using differential line pairs on the bus, which would double
	the number ofcrosspoint boards, the 8816 chips and his
	TL074-based amplifiers can pass sufficient bandwidth for decent
	CD stereo (DC to 45 MHz in the 8816, according to specs --
	oughta be enough for my Blaupunkt speakers!).  Crosstalk and
	distortion are minimal, and I'll get to try out my new Amber
	3501 distortion and noise analyzer as soon as these go online.
	The only risk with the single-ended buses is noise pickup and
	crosstalk, and I'm running them shielded all the way to
	minimize the danger.  I'll keep you posted... this is one of
	those very central systems like power that has to work
	perfectly 24 hours a day.
 
 
OTHER CABLING ISSUES
 
	It would be nice if the matrix architecture could handle
	everything -- indeed, the next version of the bike (assuming I
	don't just give in to gravity and replace the wheels with a
	concrete foundation) may well have a single optical fiber and a
	power bus.  Designs like this are frought with trade-offs of
	complexity, power requirements, weight, hackability, cost,
	bandwidth, and interface requirements, and at the present state
	of the industry (given the constraints of a human- and
	solar-powered machine) this approach wins.
 
	But it doesn't handle everything.  There may be an ethernet
	link between the SPARCstation and the Mac (with MacX presenting
	Open Look on the Mac screen), unless the experts tell me that
	LocalTalk and regular RS-232-grade lines are adequate.  I've
	provided an extra waterproof LEMO coax connector at each site
	just in case.  (LEMO makes some amazing stuff, by the way -- if
	you need ultra reliable, environmentally sealed connectors
	ranging from power to RF to multipin, contact them for a
	catalog at 800-444-LEMO.)
 
	There are lots of other random interconnects.  The headmouse
	produces three low-level ultrasonic signals which have to make
	it from helmet to console.  Lighting controls, being essential
	safety equipment, produce nice simple DC levels from the switch
	box under the seat.  The handlebar keyboard gets preprocessed
	by a local Microchip PIC processor and squirted down a
	synchronous line to the BCP.  There's a phone line (othere than
	the fully networked cellular) shared by various modems and the
	fax board, useful when I'm a guest in a home or motel room.
	There are various security and data collection sensors, the
	handlebar torque joystick, and a few other dedicated lines in
	the wiring harness -- plus the main power bus and a few antenna
	cables.  The dream of total generality has not yet been
	achieved.  But we're getting there, at least philosophically!
 
 
Closing Notes
-------------
 
	That's enough for now -- my drill itches, and I think it's time
	to go mount the stereo amplifier and the Motorola data
	transceiver on the RUMP floor.  There will be plenty of time
	for keypressing Out There.
 
	In the meantime, watch out for a new danger associated with the
	corporate lifestyle.  It affects those who share rides to work,
	and manifests itself as sharp pains in the tips of the toes.
	It's... the dreaded Carpool Toenail Syndrome.
 
	Cheers from the bikelab!!!
 
 
		Steven K. Roberts 
		Nomadic Research Labs 
		P.O. Box 2390 
		Santa Cruz, CA 95063
 
		wordy@bikelab.Sun.com (primary internet)
		wordy@cup.portal.com
		GEnie, MCI, or AOL:  wordy (GEnie preferred)
 
 
 
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Date: Thu, 21 Feb 91 22:25:33 PST
From: wordy@Corp.Sun.COM (Steven K. Roberts)
Message-Id: <9102220625.AA04873@bikelab.Corp.Sun.COM>
To: nomadness@bikelab.Corp.Sun.COM
Subject: Notes from the Bikelab -- #7
1809.7#8, On passion and panniersULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindThu Mar 21 1991 11:29453
---------------------- 
NOTES FROM THE BIKELAB 
Issue #8 -- 3/20/91
by Steven K. Roberts
----------------------
 
Copyright (C) 1991 by Steven K. Roberts.  All Rights Reserved.
(Intact reposting and free distribution is OK with permission; 
personal forwarding is quite OK without.)
 
 
	IN THIS ISSUE:
		Tidal Passion
		Satellite data communications
		In other news
		The emailbag
 
 
	"Doesn't it ever make you feel funny that there are so many
	people working so hard to get you out of town?"
		 -- Dave Berkstresser during a busy night with 
		    3 of us slaving away in the bikelab...
 
 
 
	You know, sometimes this whole thing seems deliciously insane.
	Off the deep end.  Wigged out... big time.  It seldom appears
	to me in that light, fortunately, but occasionally I have a
	moment of shifted perspective -- perhaps while lying under this
	monster trying to reach a buried socket-head cap screw with a
	ball driver in my fingertips, perhaps peering into the OrCAD
	files, or perhaps just showing it to a visitor and having a
	moment of empathy.
 
	Whatever triggers it, the feeling is the same:  I'm living an
	oxymoron.  Industrial bicycle touring?  Four years of full-time
	work on a bicycle, aided by dozens of freelancing
	professionals, serious R&D tools, a few subcontractors, a lab
	in Silicon Valley, and about 140 sponsors?  All I wanted to do
	was go for a bike ride... sheesh.  The dream was so clear:
	living the simple life, cruising beautiful lands, seeking love
	and adventure while turning out a few spirited tales to keep
	the campstove stoked and the bearings lubed, hanging out in the
	networks, playing with ham radio, writing books while pedaling,
	staying linked via satellite to networks and tracking systems,
	hacking real-time code in campgrounds...  oops, there I go
	again.  The simple life.  Right.
 
	The problem is that I've become a technoid yuppie hobo.
	Wanting it ALL creates a real problem when your home is a
	bicycle.  Not that I'm complaining, mind you -- I'm having the
	time of my life -- but still, every now and then it just seems
	like the most outrageous madness imaginable.  Especially when I
	realize that in 17 weeks I'll truck this thing to Omaha, of all
	places, then pedal shakily east, my out-of-shape knees
	throbbing, strange rattles stopping me for roadside tweaks, the
	whole gestalt of life on the road slamming me full in the face
	once again with all its gritty intensity.  Crowds at
	restaurants ("Just one question," someone always asks, not
	realizing that it's not just one question:  "What's all this
	stuff DO?").  The daily quests for food and a place to sleep.
	The undercurrent of security paranoia, constant exposure to
	unpredictable strangers in potentially lethal vehicles, sudden
	honks of unknown intent, teeth-clattering roads, narrow
	motel-room doors, gray days of soaking rain, and through it all
	a recurring sense of insanity touched with moments of profound
	sweetness.  17 weeks until I roll BEHEMOTH out of this
	windowless lab and back into the wide, wide world of unknowns,
	at once alluring and terrifying despite 16,000 miles of
	experience on previous releases.
 
	It sounds abstract and unmistakably mad, but there's something
	about passion that makes it all work.
 
 
Tidal Passion
-------------  
 
	I talk often of passion.  It's a driving theme of nomadness, of
	learning, of life in general -- it's the crystallization of
	dreams, the lust for evolution, the very antithesis of comfort.
	Without passion, life is spent waiting... waiting for someone
	else's input to make it all seem worthwhile.
 
	With it, growth is a way of life.
 
	Passion is not a notion, or a psychological abstraction.  It
	often appears for a while in association with sex, but that's
	not what it's all about either.  Passion is raw and
	all-consuming, and can't be replaced with religion, New Age
	interpretations of experience, academic compartmentalizations
	of the universe, a romp up the career ladder, or copping an
	attitude.  It's intense, almost violent; it renders everything
	else in life unimportant while driving you on a quest of
	personally epic proportion.
 
	Something like that is not to be taken lightly, especially if
	you once had it and now sense it slipping away.
 
	The problem is that this whole culture discourages passion --
	though not overtly, of course.  We're politely encouraged to
	excel, to invent, to make something of ourselves.  But the
	people who really do so have had to struggle past the
	boundaries of a society that offers up numbing entertainment,
	reduces education to the level of homogenization, discourages
	risk in its corporate world, applauds conformity, treats the
	exceptional as aberrations, and rewards the "successful" with
	that spectacularly sanitized mediocrity known as suburban
	bliss.
 
	There's an abrupt boundary between the haves and the have nots,
	as far as passion is concerned.  You can't just dabble in
	passion -- it's all or nothing.  Suddenly finding it makes you
	resent Christians for appropriating that otherwise delightful
	term "born again"; losing it makes you feel dead (and in some
	tragic cases, even take steps to make it so).
 
	No, there's no such thing as a passion dilettante.  Your life
	is either driven by a grand, magnificent, all-encompassing
	design . . . or it isn't.
 
	What is possible, unfortunately, is to live passionately for a
	few years then suffer through the agonizing process of watching
	it slip away -- without even knowing whether it's recoverable.
	It must be a bit like Parkinson's . . . the mind goes, but
	slowly enough that you witness your own dissolution and
	understand perfectly well what it means.
 
                      	             * * *
 
	What I'm assuming, however, is that passion can be viewed as a
	tidal, and thus cyclic, phenomenon.  It has been in my life,
	certainly, with every ebb a slow tragedy and every flow an
	exuberant celebration of new growth.  The question is, how can
	one short-circuit this process and keep passion alive?  Could
	we survive nonstop passion, day in and day out?  Is endless
	passion even possible?  If you see it slipping, can you snatch
	it back?
 
	One way, I think, is with landmarks.  For me, it's a strange
	mix of favorite road music, an amusing juxtaposition of design
	concepts, fantasies of prototypical encounters Out There, and a
	few freeze-frame images of intense romance or adventure etched
	like lightning flashes on my brain.
 
	Another way to hang on to it is by spending time with
	passionate people -- other mad, driven souls who brave the
	chortlings of the complacent and fear not the spectre of
	bankruptcy.  It's powerfully reinforcing stuff, and when you
	forget your own passion, a spark from someone else's can
	reignite the blaze.
 
	Now let's enumerate methods that don't work:
 
 
	>>  Commiserating with dispassionate friends (did you know that
	The Random House Dictionary defines dispassionate as "free from
	or unaffected by passion or bias" as if passion were a disease
	and somehow comparable to bias?)
 
	>>  Making lists of things to do, especially if they represent
	the intellectualization of something about which you were once
	passionate.
 
	>>  Perennially reshuffling your workspace, filing systems,
	business structure, software choices, circle of friends, or
	choice of town -- all in the name of correcting problems that
	are interfering with your pursuit of the Big Dream.
 
	>>  Waiting for someone else to come along and solve your
	problems, or, if you're wealthy, attempting to subcontract your
	quest.
 
	>>  Praying, drinking, getting stoned, swilling coffee, playing
	Crystal Quest, stroking crystals, or otherwise engaging in any
	numbing ritual that by direct effect or superstition is somehow
	involved with soothing your psyche or warding off danger.  (Not
	that all these things are necessarily bad, mind you, they just
	don't have anything to do with passion . . . even though some
	of them feel pretty good.  Why, one day last year on a coffee
	buzz I broke 2 million in Crystal Quest and celebrated with a
	drink!)
 
 
	Knowing what might work and what definitely doesn't is useful,
	but the most important thing is recognizing when your passion
	is slipping -- and stopping it before it's too late.  The
	trappings and rewards of past brilliance echo sweetly with the
	magic of days gone by, and it's blissful to sail on remembered
	waves if you ignore the fact that you're not on a boat
	anymore.
 
	Remember why you are.  Life is only once, and slips by so
	smoothly that you can get away with coasting through a whole
	career and still look pretty good.  Find what you really want.
	Grasp it with unshakable passion and focused desire.
 
	Everything else is secondary.
 
 
 
Satellite data communications
-----------------------------
 
	Given that passionate buildup, I guess I owe you a real
	whiz-bang development in bike-tech this issue!  OK, here it
	is:  BEHEMOTH is now connected to the network around the clock,
	via direct satellite data link.
 
	No, I'm not kidding.  On a small aluminum platform at
	solar-panel level behind the trailer is a 12" diameter radome
	about 7" tall.  Inside, a little 14 GHz antenna steered by a
	stepper motor tracks the GTE GSTAR satellite 22,300 miles above
	the equator at 103 degrees.  This primarily handles
	bidirectional mail traffic, but occasonally the antenna glances
	east to take a fix on a tracker satellite and triangulate its
	own location.  While this doesn't have the precision of the
	Trimble GPS, it does automatically stamp each data transmission
	with the location of the bike (within about 1,000 feet) and
	interfaces smoothly with a whole tracking system that's already
	in place... handling almost 15,000 trucks, boats, cars, and
	airplanes around North America.  In fact, my base-office PC now
	shows a road map on its screen, with BEHEMOTH's location noted
	in purple and its travel history as a dotted blue line.
 
	A coax cable pair links the radome with the main unit -- a
	shock-mounted black box that now occupies the forward basement
	of the trailer (with a nice low center of gravity, adding
	significantly to that all-important road-hugging weight...).
	This unit provides an interface to the bike's computer network,
	making it a component in the whole communication and security
	system.  At the moment, since it's in the early phase of
	testing, I'm using the standard LCD terminal usually provided
	for the driver, but efforts are already underway to link it to
	the mail server in the bike's SPARCstation and, at the other
	end, build a seamless connection to internet.
 
	The system that makes all this possible is the Qualcomm
	OmniTRACS satellite terminal, and folks, this is some SERIOUS
	magic!  It's the kind of thing that makes the writer in me wax
	rhapsodic...
 
	I mean, think about it.  I'm already used to ham radio and the
	wonders of HF propagation, getting only a minor thrill from
	making a contact with Sweden on the amount of power in a
	typical Christmas tree bulb.  But this is another level beyond
	that.  Transmit power is 1 watt (somewhere in the pocket
	flashlight range), and the antenna's aperture is 5 degrees wide
	and 40 degrees high, centered around 40 degrees elevation to
	insure coverage anywhere in or near the US.  How much of that 1
	watt makes it to the satellite drifting quietly out there in
	the Clark belt, roughly four times as far from here as the
	diameter of the earth?  What's the path loss?  It's uncanny:  I
	can take off the white radome and roll the bike in a circle,
	and that little silver antenna keeps pointing at the same spot
	in the sky -- inhaling messages from Qualcomm's Network
	Management Center in San Diego and uploading anything I dump
	into the buffer.
 
	Operationally, this eliminates my dependence on a number of
	less reliable communication links, though I'll keep a few as
	backups.  There's still a place for the CellBlazer modem, of
	course -- when I need blinding speed to move large files like
	captured video frames, 10 kilobaud to the nearest cellular MTSO
	will be much more appropriate than the 165 bits/second of the
	satellite link, and well worth the air time charges (which, for
	some reason, seem to be among the most un-sponsorable of all
	nomadic commodities...).  And I'll still use AMTOR and packet
	on ham radio, though only for non-business traffic.  But the
	OmniTRACS terminal is rapidly becoming the centerpiece of
	BEHEMOTH's mobile communications resources.
 
	Since this technology was designed with high-value, sensitive
	cargo in mind (like military munitions shipments), there are
	quite a few system-level features that make it attractive.  The
	network management center is staffed 24 hours a day, and a pin
	on the terminal's interface connector is for a panic button.
	Having instant MAYDAY capability on demand -- transmitted via
	satellite along with my latitude and longitude -- makes this a
	major addition to the bike's security system.  And the plan now
	is to upload a telemetry block and brief text message every few
	hours, not only keeping the base office advised of all activity
	but also feeding the road fantasies of any "workstation
	traveler" who wants to ride along with me via the magic of
	electronics.  (I'll begin with the assumption that everyone on
	this nomadness alias and its cross-postings will want the
	updates, and you can tell me after I hit the road if you
	don't.)
 
	As implementation proceeds, I'll have much more to report on
	this latest addition.  Just for amusement, by the way, I added
	up the number of satellites that in one way or another will
	communicate directly with the bike.  There are about 30
	(including the constellation of 24 GPS satellites now 3/4 of
	the way to completion and four of the ham radio "OSCAR" birds
	created by AMSAT and UOSAT).  This all extends the original
	model of high-tech nomadness:
 
	Once you move to Dataspace, you can put your body anywhere you
	like.
 
 
In Other News...
----------------
 
	What, aside from passion and satellites, has been happening in
	the bikelab?  A few things:
 
	The new fairing is under construction by Dave Berkstresser --
	he made a paper mache model with the aid of my old Zzipper
	lexan fairing, and has been carving nacelles into it for the
	headlight, Trimble GPS antenna, reflectors, and so on.  This
	will be used to mold a Bondo "plug," from which will be pulled
	a fiberglass female mold, which will finally be used to do the
	real thing in Kevlar.
 
	Custom blue cordura packs of great beauty have been made for
	the RUMP by Jesse Newcomb, who doubles as a SCSI wizard and
	Stanford radio deejay.  These will be sealed onto the
	fiberglass sides instead of my original flush doors, which
	turned out to be almost impossible to seal without lots and
	lots of gasket-compression latches.  They're quite waterproof,
	offer easy-access space for small items, unzip to expose the
	SPARC bay (left) and the fridge (right), and, hopefully, in an
	accident will help protect the fiberglass.
 
	I just finished the power conversion panel, mounted on a
	commbay sidewall across from all the battery management
	hardware.  This area includes a power entry module (mounted
	with PEM nuts, of course), the Resonant Power Technology 12V
	10A switcher for charging from the AC line, a Statpower
	inverter to run 110V appliances from bike power, and the HV
	supply for the 1mW HeNe laser (hey, ya gotta have a toy...).
 
	Finally, there's been a lot of pondering here (with the aid of
	Geoff Baehr and a few other networking gurus) about how to make
	the Ethernet connection between Mac, PC, and SUN environments.
	The smoothness of the on-board network will have a lot to do
	with riding pleasure, so we're trying to make the right choices
	up front.  So far it looks like Xircom's Pocket LAN adapter for
	the Ampro PC, LRU's Nodem for the Mac SCSI port, PC-NFS on the
	former, MacX on the latter, the SPARC doing just what it was
	designed to do, and about 10 feet of coax to tie 'em all
	together.  World's smallest multi-platform 10 MHz LAN...
 
 
The Emailbag
------------
 
John Erickson from Advanced Test Development at DEC sends a fascinating
comment on another nomadic system, long ago and far away:
 
        Hi Steven!
        
        Yet another  great  issue of "Notes from the Bikelab"! Thanks for
        taking the time to produce technical tidbits for those of us that
        are interested in your adventures.
 
        In Issue #7 you write:
        
>	 ...After pondering the problem  for  a while, the solution became
>        obvious:       crosspoint  switching.      Traditional    network
>        architectures    require  all  nodes  to  share    some    common
>        characteristics  and  generally behave themselves;  a  crosspoint
>        matrix doesn't care.  I can run events  at  multiple  data  rates
>        simultaneously  --  even  DC  or analog sensor data if  required.
>        (Audio, since it's so pervasive on the bike, gets its  own matrix
>        with a few  special  characteristics  including  gain-setting  on
>        every line.)
 
        I think this strategy will prove to be incredibly _wise_ over the
        long  run.    If  you    read    the    novel    accounting   the
        nearly-disasterous Apollo 13 mission, the one  during  which  the
        liquid oxygen tank on the CM exploded,  you will see a validation
        of  your  strategy.  The astronauts' lives were  saved  by  their
        ability to reconfigure CM and LM systems --- in particular, their
        ability to play games with the power busses. 
        
        When  the problem first arose they had _no_clue_ what was up  ---
        initially,  I believe they only saw some power anomolies.  But by
        switching in and  out  various  power  sources  (fuel  cells  and
        batteries) they were able to determine that something was up with
        their CM oxygen, and soon  transferred "control" to the LM, which
        served  as a "lifeboat".  Sufficient  generality  gave  them  the
        ability to reconfigure their spacecraft in-flight for  a  mission
        they had never expected!
        
        Have a GREAT one!
 
 
Michael Bass, of the Molecular Science Research Center at Battelle's
Pacific Northwest Laboratory, writes:
 
	With all of this computer equipment in the RUMP and trailer and
	under the console, I was wondering if you have given much
	thought to heat dissipation?  Especially in the hot, humid
	summer of Iowa, will you be fearing a total meltdown of
	silicon?
 
Michael...
 
	That's indeed a major issue.  The Winnebiko II was poorly
	designed in that regard -- I had a clear fairing over blue
	solar panels bolted to the top aluminum panel of the console.
	Got VERY hot when parked in the sun.  All of BEHEMOTH's
	critical areas are under white or reflective covers (except the
	commbay in the trailer, but it'll have to take it -- I had to
	put solar panels somewhere!).  In general, I've found that the
	silicon can take all kinds of abuse as long as you don't overdo
	it.  I'm a little more concerned about my $CD$ library (thermal
	cycling of materials with different thermal expansion
	coefficients), film, and so on.  These I keep buried deep in
	the trailer, surrounded by lots of thermal capacitance.  Having
	said all that, we'll see what REALLY happens on the road!
 
 
And finally, Bart Bartlett of Trimble Navigation's facility in Kawagoe,
Japan, asks:
 
	Any thoughts on going international?  If you wanted to elevate
	the "Weirdness Quotient" by placing the bike in a fundamentally
	different culture, I would highly recomend a trip to Japan.
 
Bart...
 
	Definitely in the plans!  Having been on NHK and in some
	Japanese print media, I've seen the level of interest and am
	trying to imagine what it would be like to travel there.
	Perhaps after the 91-92 year in the US I can find a sponsor to
	underwrite the hard part (getting there) and get me launched on
	a jitensha-ryoko.
 
	Incidentally, I was explaining the bike to a ham in Osaka on 10
	meters one day, speaking carefully across the language
	barrier.  When I turned it back over to him, he replied with
	enthusiasm:  "Ah, Hari Davidson!"
 
 
 
 
	Cheers from the bikelab!!!
 
 
		Steven K. Roberts 
		Nomadic Research Labs 
		P.O. Box 2390 
		Santa Cruz, CA 95063
 
		wordy@bikelab.Sun.com (primary internet)
		wordy@cup.portal.com
		GEnie, MCI, or AOL:  wordy (GEnie preferred)
 
1809.8#10, antennas and voltage regulatorsULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindWed May 29 1991 14:51427
---------------------- 
NOTES FROM THE BIKELAB 
Issue #10 -- 5/28/91
by Steven K. Roberts
----------------------
 
Copyright (C) 1991 by Steven K. Roberts.  All Rights Reserved.
(Intact reposting and free distribution is OK with permission; 
personal forwarding is OK without.)
 
 
	IN THIS ISSUE:
		The Antenna Farm
		Nifty Regulators
 
 
	"Daddy toys!"
		-- concise assessment by Julia Selfridge, age 2,
		upon being introduced to BEHEMOTH for the first time.
 
 
	Well, there are now 49 days to departure, and I'm in the D
	phase of the PFD phenomenon that most concisely describes my
	work habits (Procrastination Followed by Despair).  It is clear
	now that the machine will indeed roll.  It has gears, brakes,
	lights, a Cateye, and a radio... all working.  There's pack
	space, and most areas are waterproofed.  Many subsystems are
	nailed down on the bike and have been tested on umbilici, but
	now await cabling or software to become useful.  The primary
	task is to complete as many "lab" tasks as possible in the next
	7 weeks...  for after that, I will no longer have the milling
	machine, hardware inventory, high-speed scope, huge work area,
	or all those wonderful new daddy-toys still shrink-wrapped on
	the bench.
 
	Good thing this is a passion, eh?
 
	Actually, the project is moving faster than ever -- I have new
	help.  Answering my recent call, Martin Rowland has moved up
	from San Diego to be the techno-gofer and general assistant
	between here and departure.  This helps a lot, greatly reducing
	the time spent moving my body around Silly Valley in order to
	acquire objects.  David K. Z. Harris of Telebit is donating
	some time to bring up the ham gear and related components, Bill
	Muench and Mike Perry are helping get the FORTH code started,
	Steve desJardins is building the pneumatically actuated landing
	gear, Bob Lockhart is doing the PCB CAD work on the audio
	crosspoint network, and the various people I've credited before
	are still helping with various projects... collectively making
	it likely that BEHEMOTH will indeed raise a quizzical eyelid
	and utter "hello, world" just in time for RAGBRAI.
 
	Incidentally, if you've been reading this alias for a while and
	still harbor a quite reasonable suspicion that it's all twisted
	technoid fiction, there will be some current photos in the
	media during the next couple of months.  Sometimes editorial
	schedules slip, but I've been told of the following:
 
     *	5 page spread in the July of DISCOVER, with detailed captions
     *	3 pager in the August BICYCLING, including stunning photos
     *	interview with pix in the next MONDO 2000
     *	article in the 6/28 SF EXAMINER, and CHRONICLE later this week
     *	a reprint in the next issue of ComputorEdge from San Diego
     *	technical article with photos in NOMADNESS #10
 
	Or come to Iowa during the last week in July and join 10,000
	cyclists in a mad, drunken 430-mile ride from Missouri Valley
	to Bellevue...
 
	On with the technical news!
 
 
The Antenna Farm
----------------
 
	BEHEMOTH is bristling with a veritable thicket of skyhooks,
	some of which have already received mention in this series.
	Now that they're all mounted, however, it's a good time for a
	summary.
 
	Technically speaking, the bike carries 18 separate antennae,
	not including all the unintended ones (cables, LCD panels,
	spokes, and probably my nose).  This all makes me wish for some
	magical phased array that could do it all... for every one of
	these has to be packaged, cabled, waterproofed, positioned
	optimally relative to the others, dragged through the viscous
	medium known as air, and hauled up hills.  But, boy, can I ever
	communicate!
 
	Let's cruise up the electromegnatic spectrum from 150 kHz to 14
	GHz and look at all the bike parts that radiate, resonate,
	ionize the atmosphere, or pluck whispers from the ether...
 
Active SWL whip (150 kHz - 30 MHz and 78-108 MHz)
 
	This is seldom deployed while riding, but is the 46" amplified
	whip that came with Sony's new ICF-SW1 miniature digital
	shortwave receiver.  Clever box -- the radio has its own local
	whip, or you can plug in an RF amplifier module connected by
	micro-coax on a little reel to the big one.
 
HF mobile dipole (3-28 MHz)
	
	Featured in issue #1 of this series, this is proving to be a
	dramatic alternative to the traditional mobile vertical for HF
	ham operation (I use an Icom 725 transceiver).  The basic
	problem with HF verticals is that they use the vehicle as a
	counterpoise -- the bike is not only too small (hah) for
	effective use on low frequencies, but there is a very real
	danger of RF hot spots in this mode.  The solution is a
	balanced antenna such as a dipole, and this one is constructed
	of two Outbacker Jr 7-band verticals (75-40-20-17-15-12-10
	meters).  They are normally stowed against the telescoping
	fiberglass mast (BYP, or Big Yellow Pole) on the back of the
	trailer, but can be flipped up to either a horizontal or
	vertical dipole configuration (also V or inverted-V, actually,
	though I haven't tried it) and locked with knobs.  The entire
	assembly while mobile is about 7 feet off the ground, extending
	to 13 feet when I'm camped.  The BYP is hinged, and has a
	breakaway mechanism designed by Steve desJardins to protect the
	trailer body if I do something stupid like ride under a low
	tree limb.
 
HF wire dipole pack (7-28 MHz)
 
	Experience has shown that there's no substitute for full-size
	wire dipoles, so there's a little nylon bag stuffed in the
	satellite basement under the WASU subflooring.  Inside is a 50'
	hank of RG-58 coax, some nylon rope, and simple dipoles for
	40/15, 20, and 10 meters, each with an SO-239 connector at the
	center insulator.  I'll carry this until I have a chance to A-B
	it against the Outbackers under a variety of conditions, and
	will toss it with pleasure if the difference turns out to be
	minor.  Stringing dipoles between trees can be an amusing
	ritual, but it does get old after a while -- and is seldom
	worth the bother for a short layover.  (Actually, I just made a
	tough decision yesterday to remove the MFJ tuner and artificial
	ground currently built into the communications bay.  The plan
	was to carry a military surplus longwire and load it up
	whenever I'm stopped, but it's just too much of a pain.  I've
	never been happy with anything requiring a tuner, and the
	danger of high RF voltages from pilot error with grounding is
	too great.  Besides, I need the commbay real estate.)
 
Pager/CB helical duck (27 MHz)
 
	There are three whip antennas on the trailer, evenly spaced
	along the centerline of the solar panels.  Their mounting
	platforms are electronically bonded to the aluminum substrates
	of the panels, making them an excellent ground plane.  (Someone
	pointed out that the giant semicrystalline silicon rectifiers
	atop this ground plane may detect transmitted RF and impose
	noise on the battery bus -- any RF wizards out there want to
	comment on this?)  The most forward of these antennas is the CB
	helical duck from Larsen, and it is switched through a couple
	of BNCs in the coax patch panel between the default security
	pager and the culturally useless but occasionally handy CB
	rig in the trailer.
 
2-meter halfwave (144-148 MHz)
 
	The classic workhorse antenna for bicycle-mobile 2-meter
	operation is the Larsen halfwave whip.  I've used this for
	years with excellent results:  it has a wide radiation angle
	and accepts a seat-back mounting 15 degrees off vertical
	without loss of gain fore-aft; it needs no ground plane; it's
	thin and discreet.  If you operate bicycle mobile, forget the
	1/4 and 5/8 wave units and get one of these.  (A J-pole is a
	higher-gain option, but is generally much more delicate.) This
	unit, on an NMO mount bolted to a plug TIG-welded into the seat
	back, is kept from flailing uncontrollably by a sliding
	coupling to the fiberglass flagpole plugged into the seat
	tube.  A coax cable runs directly to the console 2-meter rig --
	a hacked Icom u2AT, repackaged and powered via a 9-volt Power
	Trends switcher.  Although there is a dual-bander on the
	trailer, using it along with the requisite coax patch panel,
	duplexer, and disconnect headers would require 6 coax connector
	pairs... a bit excessive for a micropower transceiver!
 
(2) wireless intercom helical whips (169-186 MHz)
 
	One of the interesting features of BEHEMOTH's security system
	is the ability to open a bidirectional audio link between bike
	and manpack, letting me find out when the beeper sounds if the
	situation justifies further action (often, a level-2 violation
	is just someone harmlessly touching the machine out of
	curiosity).  I once tried this via 2 meters, but the very first
	test under real conditions yielded some brain-dead bozo
	muttering:  "what the **** is this piece of ****?"  I panicked,
	imagining the reaction of the FCC and the amateur radio
	community, and immediately disconnected the circuit.  This
	time, it's a license-free low-power wireless intercom good for
	a few hundred feet, and the antennas, again from Larsen, are
	custom helical rubber ducks -- one on the RUMP and the other on
	the manpack.
 
VHF-UHF dual-bander with duplexer (144-148 and 440-450 MHz)
 
	This Larsen whip (guess you're starting to notice that I like
	Larsen antennas -- you can get more info on them by calling the
	company at 800-426-1656) is a shunt-fed grounded coil
	dual-bander, which is 5/8-wave at 2 meters and 1/2 over 1/2
	colinear at 440.  Nice unit.  It holds the coveted center spot
	on the solar ground plane, and is cabled to Larsen's AD 2/70
	duplexer.  This presents two spigots, one for each band, and
	these are normally cabled to the Yaesu 290 and 790 multimode
	transceivers (my big guns for VHF and UHF).  In case I haven't
	mentioned them earlier in this series, these are excellent
	radios:  very low battery drain, FM-CW-USB-LSB modes, plug-on
	modules for 25-watt amplifiers or battery packs, and pleasant
	user interface.  I have used the pair, aided by a pair of ARR
	preamps and a KLM satellite antenna, to work OSCAR 13 with good
	results, and on the bike they will be used for the microsats,
	packet, and long-range terrestrial operation.  Incidentally,
	this antenna tends to flail around if unsupported -- I made a
	guying collar that slips over the top element onto the center
	coil, and attached four thin guy lines down to the solar
	surface.
 
VHF-UHF dual-band helical whip (144-148 and 440-450 MHz)
 
	Though not mounted on the bike itself, this one counts in our
	antenna chautauqua -- it's the rubber duckie attached to the
	Icom IC-24 dual-band handheld transceiver.  Amazing device.
	Word on the street is that the antenna that comes with the Icom
	is not so hot, but I think they changed it in more recent
	deliveries.  I have both the original Icom and a Larsen of
	similar dimensions, and will experiment with the 15" Diamond
	dual-bander before packing up for departure.
 
(2) UHF packet link helical whips (457.525 and 457.575 MHz)
 
	The bike-to-manpack data link consists of a pair of Motorola
	Radius RNET transceivers, and Larsen quarter-wave UHF ducks cut
	to my licensed itinerant and cargo frequencies are mounted on
	the RUMP at shoulder level and on a flip-up coax elbow on the
	Zero manpack.  The coax patch panel in the trailer and a Lemo
	waterproof connector on the RUMP allow the bike's data radio to
	be patched to the much more efficient dual-bander for
	long-range use.
 
VHF-UHF television whip (55-211 MHz and 471-801 MHz)
 
	This is just the whip antenna on the Sony Watchman TV set.
 
UNGO security remote (300 MHz)
 
	Inside the RUMP, the UNGO box security system is mounted on the
	forward fiberglass wall -- watching for movement via a blob of
	mercury inside a 40 kHz field.  This has proven in past
	machines to be highly reliable, and is the basic "Yikes!
	Someone is touching me!" sensor.  Like most car alarms these
	days, it has a pocket remote control, and this little antenna
	picks up the digitally encoded 300 MHz signal.
 
Cellular elevated feed whip (821-896 MHz)
 
	The rear spot on the solar lid belongs to the cellular whip, an
	elevated feed unit from Larsen with 3db gain.  This has
	slightly better than normal cellular performance due to the
	extra height, but is nothing like the next item...
 
Cellular 6-element yagi (824-868 MHz)
 
	You know how frustrating it is to be just outside cellular
	service range, watching your NO SERVICE light flash in the
	middle of a conversation?  This fixes that problem dramatically
	-- it's a 6-element beam with 10db gain, cut for the cellular
	mobile unit's transmit frequency range.  I've tested this to
	about 100 miles on my Oki 491 with good results, and it is ONLY
	for use when unmoving and outside a normal service area since
	the radiation pattern can confuse the cell sites and frustrate
	normal channel-management operations.  (A more typical use is
	to provide a cellular alternative to stringing wires for remote
	home sites.)
 
GPS receiver (1.575 GHz)
 
	Mounted in a little nacelle molded into the new fiberglass
	fairing is an impressive bit of RF black magic, about 4"
	square.  This is the antenna for the Trimble TANS GPS
	navigation receiver, receiving spread spectrum time code data
	from a constellation of 24 satellites in circular orbit (about
	17 are now in place).  The antenna contains a 50db preamp
	powered via the coax feedline, and the actual element is a
	piece of thick glass-epoxy circuit board with a ground plane on
	one side and a rectangle on the other... fed with a single pin
	about a third of the way in from a corner.  Something about
	standing waves and circular polarization... like I said, black
	magic!  I call it my "here and now" box:  when powered on, it
	puts out a continuous feed of latitude, longitude, and
	elevation (to about 100 feet); speed to .1 mph; and time to 1
	microsecond.
 
Microwave security unit (10 GHz)
 
	Moving up rapidly in the spectrum, we find a peak at 10 GHz --
	belonging to the AM Sensors (formerly Alpha Industries)
	microwave doppler motion sensor, the first level of security
	monitoring.  The feedhorn is mounted vertically, penetrating
	the top of the RUMP and firing into what appears to be a fat
	mounting base for the 7" yellow flasher.  Inside is the hack:
	a copper 90-degree cone with its apex at the exit aperture of
	the antenna, resulting in a 360-degree radiation pattern around
	the bike with a 48 degree spread from the horizontal.
	Sensitivity is set to trigger a response when a person moves
	within 10-15 feet (not necessarily an alarm condition, but good
	to know).
 
Qualcomm satellite terminal (14 GHz)
 
	Finally, up in the rarified ether of the Ku band, there is the
	OmniTRACS terminal.  More than any other single bike system,
	this expresses the theme of this whole adventure:  maximum
	connectivity under all conditions, rendering my physical
	location irrelevant via the magic of technology.  (This system
	is described a little more fully in Issue #8.)  Inside the 12"
	diameter white dome is a stepper-motor-driven feedhorn, curved
	and shaped to yield a 5-degree wide by 40-degree high beam,
	centered at 40 degrees above the horizon.  This is driven in
	azimuth by the controller, which monitors the signal from the
	GTE GSTAR satellite for feedback.  Occasionally it glances over
	at a "tracker" bird to triangulate its own location within
	about 1000 feet, automatically location-stamping all my
	outgoing email.  1 GHz IF and REF lines connect the antenna to
	the OmniTRACS main unit under the trailer's forward Thermoclear
	subfloor.  The net effect?  24-hour-a-day email connectivity,
	hacked into internet via the Qualcomm hub in San Diego and a
	Sun 3/260 that rewrites mail headers and otherwise manages tha
	network hooks.
 
 
	Phew.  There.  The only thing that scares me about all this
	(other than the usual problem of hauling it up hills and the
	potential for frying myself with some exotic blend of radiated
	energy), is the effect on certain non-technical functionaries
	who hold accept-reject power (and worse) at national borders.
	Bernard Magnouloux, circumnavigating the globe the hard way via
	bicycle (the length of Africa, the Length of South America,
	across China, etc), was harrassed at some obscure African
	border for being a spy.  It was the high-tech equipment that
	got him in trouble... a pocket shortwave radio like any of us
	could put on the Visa card for about sixty bucks.  I may have
	problems with that someday...
 
	"What is this?"
 
	"Oh, just my satellite link.  For email."  I smile disarmingly,
	hoping the guard will stop aiming his service revolver at my
	chest.
 
	"And this?"
 
	"Ah, that.  A high-speed packet data link for file transfers
	between the bike and this little aluminum briefcase here...."
 
	"I see.  You will follow me.  Keep your hands where I can see
	them."
 
	Considering that I was harrassed for over an hour when bringing
	the bike into Port Angeles, WA from its display at Expo in
	Vancouver, this is not at all farfetched.  Next version... the
	stealth model...
 
	Arthur C. Clarke observed quite accurately that "any
	sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from
	magic."  Where governments are involved, replace "magic" with
	"national security risk."  In a philosophical sense, of course,
	that's quite true... is there anything that shows LESS respect
	for artificial national borders than radio waves?
 
 
 
Nifty Regulators
----------------
 
	This issue is getting long, but there is one more thing I
	really have to tell you about.  You know those ubiquitous
	3-terminal regulators that have been around since the early
	1970's -- the 340 series and its various cousins?  They're
	handy but horrendously inefficient, burning away the difference
	between input voltage and output voltage in the form of heat,
	linearly related to the load current.  Obviously useless for an
	application such as this where power is a scarce resource.
 
	Switching regulators have been around for years, of course, but
	have a well-deserved reputation for being difficult to
	design.   Chips from Maxim and Linear Technologies go a long
	way toward making life easier (and are still the best approach
	for really fine-tuning and cost-optimizing a low-power switcher
	design).  But haven't you just ACHED for something quick and
	easy, like a drop-in 3-terminal regulator replacement that
	doesn't require you to think about inductors and catch diodes?
	Ah, I thought so.
 
	Well, now there is one.  The 78SR series from Power Trends is
	just that -- slick little 1.5 amp 3-terminal modules that make
	efficient power supply design about as easy as GROSS power
	supply design was back when we didn't know any better.  They're
	available in 5, 9, and 12 volt models, are short-circuit
	protected, draw about 6 mA quiescent, accept up to 30 volts in,
	and run at about 90% efficiency with loads above 100 mA or so.
	Implementation is trivial -- an input electrolytic to slow the
	rise time of a fast power switch, an output cap to reduce 650
	kHz ripple (seems pretty optional -- I don't even notice the
	effects when running radio gear), and in some applications a
	zener to clamp the output in situations when the input voltage
	rise time is extremely short.  That's it.  They work
	beautifully, and are being scattered all over the bike to
	produce regulated voltages from the 12-volt battery bus.
 
	Check 'em out... the company is Power Trends in Batavia, IL
	(contact Don Mattheisen at 708-406-0900).
 
 
 Cheers from the Bikelab!
 
 
		Steven K. Roberts 
		Nomadic Research Labs 
		P.O. Box 2185 
		El Segundo, CA 90245-2185
 
		wordy@bikelab.Sun.com (primary internet)
		GEnie, MCI, or AOL:  wordy
 
1809.9#11, FAQ, getting ready to leaveULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindSun Jun 23 1991 13:29455
---------------------- 
NOTES FROM THE BIKELAB 
Issue #11 -- 6/22/91
by Steven K. Roberts
----------------------
 
Copyright (C) 1991 by Steven K. Roberts.  All Rights Reserved.
(Intact reposting and free distribution is OK with permission; 
personal forwarding is OK without.)
 
 
IN THIS ISSUE:
	20 Frequently Asked Questions
 
 
"You know you're going slow when you've got dead bugs on the
BACK of your bike."
	-- the always-quotable Dave Berkstresser, watching
	me trundle slowly up his driveway during a test ride.
 
 
	It's getting close.  Suddenly all priorities have changed --  the 
things that distracted me last month are now not even an option.  
Flip on the TV for a while to relax?  Yeah, right.  The only excursions 
into the world are for the daily 10-mile training ride and subsequent 
recharging of the CSU (Calorie Storage Unit), and sleep is an annoying 
necessity that interrupts me every night at 3 AM or so.
 
	A story in the current issue of Information Week generated 
70-80 letters, and I have found my emailboxes overflowing (sitting 
at 64 unanswered items as I write this -- many quite interesting, all 
deserving a response).  Instead of spending the next couple of hours 
trying to catch up, I'm going to use them as the basis of a FAQ 
document:  these questions are typical of those asked by a techno-
literate audience (as opposed to the kind encountered on the 
street...).  If you wrote to me and haven't received a direct reply, 
please understand and enjoy the following.  You've also been added 
to the distribution list for future issues -- let me know if you don't 
want any electronic publications and I'll remove you from the alias.
 
	First, a quick update... there's been a lot of progress in the last 
couple of weeks.  David Harris is moving ahead on the audio and 
serial bus cabling, doing a beautiful job with bundles of tiny shielded 
wire and tight LEMO connector wiring. The audio crosspoint matrix 
CAD work has been completed in San Diego by Bob Lockhart, and US 
Circuits turned out boards which will be stuffed and interfaced to the 
FORTH systems next week. Ron Covell and Jesse Newcomb are 
working on mounting the new molded fiberglass fairing, which 
Maggie Victor is painting.  I've just finished bringing up the Ampro 
core-module PC and Private Eye controller -- now cabled into the 
helmet and working.  Jay Hamlin is building a keyboard controller 
that will inhale force-sensing resistor data from the handlebars and 
produce closures that make sense to the Infogrip BAT chord 
keyboard controller.  John Noerenberg is writing software to link 
Eudora in the Mac to the satellite terminal via the Comm Toolbox, 
along with some unix hacks to tie the hub into internet via a 
dedicated Sun 4/260.  Steve Delaire is building a custom motorcycle-
type hydraulic disk brake for the monster.  Dan Kottke is building an 
LED matrix controller for diagnostics, Martin Rowland is running 
around Silicon Valley on a daily basis to acquire parts, Maggie is 
helping prepare the lab for shutdown... and I've been playing 
manager, PR flack, photo model, secretary, researcher, purchasing 
agent, technician, and project strategist around the clock.  I've also 
taken two test rides since the last update, just for a reality check.  (I 
noticed that it's like, um, ~really~ heavy.)
 
	The first ride was to give a talk at Apple; the second was to the 
Foothill Flea Market, and included a live test of the Qualcomm 
OmniTRACS satellite system.  It works rather dramaticaly.  Not only 
did I send and receive numerous pieces of mail enroute, but when I 
returned sweaty and panting to the lab I found my path drawn on 
the office PC screen as a blue dotted line, connecting the points on 
the map where transmission or acknowledgment of reception had 
occurred.  Pretty magical stuff!
 
	Work in progress includes the helmet cooling system, more 
brakes, trying to finalize a tent system that can accommodate all this, 
the distributed power switching system that allows FORTH control of 
all loads via FETs, the cellular modems, general waterproofing, and, 
well, everything else that has to happen before I can ride it next 
month.  Gonna hafta drill out my toothbrush to cut weight... it seems 
that BEHEMOTH is now over 400 pounds loaded.  <shudder>
 
	(One amusing fact:  the 105-speed drivetrain covers an 
extremely wide range from 7.5 to 122 gear inches.  This translates 
into some interesting numbers... in the granny gear, one full pedal 
revolution moves me forward 22 inches.  In the tall gear, the same 
pedal stroke moves me 33 feet.)
 
	OK, on to the questions........
 
 
20 Frequently Asked Questions 
-------------------------------- 
 
Q1:	"By open-ended nomadic community, do you mean you sort of 
invite people to ride along and get some firsthand experience of the 
joy of adventure?"  (pmarceli@apple.com)
 
A1:	Yup.  For a while I was seeking people who want to trash their 
lifestyles and hit the road with me, but that smacks of commitment.  
The new plan is much more realistic.... wanna go for a bike ride and 
sample high-tech nomadness?  Fine, let's do it.  Hams are particularly 
welcome since on-the-road communication without radio is a real 
pain.  I move at a liesurely pace by most cyclists' standards, so don't 
worry too much about your physical condition.  You're probably not 
hauling 400 pounds, and should have no trouble keeping up.  If 
you're fast, then you can zip ahead, take side trips, or otherwise pass 
the time while waiting for the recumbersome bikeasaurus to trundle 
into camp.  Any takers?
 
 
Q2:	"In your travels, you must have to [meet strangers, start 
relationships, and carry on conversations] constantly.  Did it come 
easily, or did you have to work at it?"  (raan@hpcvry.cv.hp.com)
 
A2:	It happened pretty easily, largely because of this high-tech 
door-opener underneath me.  Wandering around on foot, I have a 
very hard time striking up a conversation without obvious shared 
context.  The bike provides that context, which would lead to total 
burnout on the same topic were it not for the fact that it eventually 
switches from foreground to background.  People open up to 
travelers and writers anyway, and if there's ever a lull in 
conversation, there are always more bike questions.  Besides... 
anything that reinforces peoples' dreams makes them very friendly.
 
 
Q3:	"How did you get Sun to sponsor your R&D?  Were you a Sun 
employee before you started this project?  If not (or even, if so!) how 
were they enlightened enough to give you the resources you've 
enjoyed?"  (pld@mcrc.mot.com)
 
A3:	Sun is an unusual company in that they are not totally focused 
on a specific product line (despite the wild successes of same).  A 
number of the company's high-level people spend most of their time 
thinking about the long-term future and exploring areas outside 
today's specific product development issues.  The net effect is a 
symbiosis between generalists and specialists -- and a very lively 
corporate culture.  I had almost no exposure to Sun (or workstations, 
or even unix) prior to this relationship, but we both recognized the 
potential for mutual benefit.  Sun provides resources and a 
community of intelligent people (and SPACE!), and I reciprocate by 
sharing my ideas and contacts freely... a sort of high-tech court 
jester.
	The sponsorship issue in general becomes very complex, 
especially with about 150 companies involved.  This project can be 
thought of as a three-way partnership between the bike, the 
sponsors, and the media -- with me as facilitator.  Everybody wins:  
more new toys leads to more interesting bike functionality which 
leads to more media coverage which leads to still more new toys.  
I've become addicted to it.  <grin>
 
 
Q4:	"Where can I find out more about recumbents, human-powered 
vehicle construction, and bicycle-mobile ham radio?"  (lots of people)
 
A4:	The International Human-Powered Vehicle Association 
(IHPVA) is $20/year with excellent journals from:  IHPVA, P.O. Box 
51255, Indianapolis, IN 46251-0255.
	The Recumbent Bicycle Club of America (RBCA) is recumbent-
specific and has good reviews of various bikes.  $20 to RBCA, 427-
Amherst St., Suite 305, Nashua, NH 03063.
	Bicycle Mobile Hams of America (BMHA) is all about operating 
amateur radio from your bike... send $10 to BMHA, P.O. Box 4009, 
Boulder, CO 80306.
	And while I'm plugging publications, don't forget the print 
edition of Nomadness -- which includes a superset of these online 
reports along with lots of photos and graphics.  $15 for 6 quarterly 
issues to:  Nomadic Research Labs, P.O. Box 2185, El Segundo, CA 
90245.
 
 
Q5:	"Do you have a destination, or are you just on an endless 
journey?"  (delmarva!roslan@uunet.UU.NET)
 
A5:	Yes, but if you think too much about where you're going, you 
lose respect for where you are...
	More specifically, the general plan right now is to leave Silicon 
Valley via rental truck on July 15 and drive to Omaha, there to start 
RAGBRAI -- the big (10,000 people) bicycle ride across Iowa.  From 
there I'll head to Chicago to visit a few sponsors, then to Milwaukee 
for the IHPVA championships (no, I'm not racing).  From there, 
presumably, I'll pass through Oshkosh and head up to Door County, 
then cross to Michigan on the ferry, and head down through Lansing, 
Ann Arbor, and Adrian (for custom surge trailer brakes from Cyclo-
Pedia!).  After that, I'll zoom down through Ohio and stop by 
Columbus and Cincinnati, then probably wander through Lexington 
enroute to my parents' house in Louisville, Kentucky.  
	All that comprises a robust enough shakedown cruise to give 
me a very good idea what must be finished, fixed, or thrown away.  
The vague plan is to truck back here (possibly in time for Interop?), 
spend about 3 months finishing the job, then leave again from here, 
for real -- open ended.
	(I should mention that I've already done 16,000 miles on 
previous versions, and every time I ever made predictions like this 
they turned out to be wrong.)
 
 
Q6:	"If you run the computers while you are riding, how do they 
handle the vibration?"  (70296@rsccgu.msd.ray.com)
 
A6:	Hopefully, well!  On previous trips, everything worked fine 
without any shock mounting (though the rigidly mounted console 
kept trashing the bike's headset bearings).  This time, the console 
and RUMP areas are on rubber Lord mounts, and the hard disks (all 
4) are in additional shock-isolation environments designed to meet 
Conner specs.  I'll know more by the time I hit Louisville, but feel 
confident that they'll be fine.
 
 
Q7:	"How do you deal with cooling the CPUs?"  (bill@psl.wisc.edu)
 
A7:	I start with the most power-efficient CMOS machines I can find 
(in most cases), like the Ampro core modules for DOS, the Macintosh 
Portable, 68HC11s for control, and Microchip PICs for random logic 
replacement (the SPARCstation IPC is for occasional high-
performance use in compressed video and communications, not 
constant duty enroute).  I then use switching regulators, power-cycle 
heavy loads like disk drives, and shut down things that aren't in use.  
As an example, the main DOS machine that runs the Private Eye 
heads-up display draws 1 amp at 5V max, and about half that when 
idling with its display and hard disk on standby.
 
 
Q8:	"I was a bit curious about your satellite link to the internet.  
Does it allow you the type of real-time access to the network so that 
you can interactively use network services, or is the link only for 
sending and receiving electronic files"  (VAATEK@UKCC.uky.edu)
 
A8:	The internet link is now being implemented by Qualcomm, 
which has provided an essentially off-the-shelf OmniTRACS satellite 
terminal like those in use on some 15,000 trucks around North 
America.  This is a low-speed connection, for email only -- no ftp or 
telnet!  A dedicated Sun 4/260 is being installed to rewrite headers 
and otherwise implement the gateway between Qualcomm's satellite 
hub and the net, and Eudora on the bike's Mac communicates with 
the terminal via a driver in the Comm Toolbox.  As far as email goes, 
it should be pretty much transparent.
	I will have relatively high-speed net access whenever near 
cellular sites (or connected to a modular jack, of course).  I will be 
evaluating the Telebit CellBlazer and the Microcom 1042 under a 
variety of conditions, probably favoring the former for high-speed 
dialup IP via the Netblazer to my server at Sun, and the latter for 
low-power access to GEnie, MCI, America Online, and the occasional 
BBS.  Stay tuned....
 
 
Q9:	"What do you do with your on-board computers?  Do you run 
your own business?  Do you use them while riding or when you are 
at a pit stop?"  (brian@squid.ingres.com)
 
A9:	The computers handle everything from low-level control 
(security, power, network management, data collection, gear 
display...) to high-level applications (navigation and mapping, 
biketop publishing, email, CAD, ham satellite tracking, writing, 
database management....).  Yes, I run a business -- Nomadic Research 
Labs.  It's a bit hard to define, but includes publishing a quarterly 
journal (Nomadness), selling books and technical reports about the 
adventure, speaking gigs, consulting spinoffs, and a manufacturing 
joint venture now in development.
	As to the mobile-vs-stopped question:  one of the design specs 
is that there should be NO practical difference between movement 
and stasis.  The handlebar chord keyboard, Private Eye, MSC thumb 
mouse, ultrasonic head mouse, Audapter speech board, and low-
power rugged computers make it pretty comfortable to work and 
communicate while riding.
 
 
Q10:	"Are back issues of Notes from the Bikelab available via ftp?"  
(Lots of people)
 
A10:	Not yet, but soon.  I'll post the details in a future issue when 
they are online.
 
 
Q11:	"How do you protect the bike from rain, snow, etc.?  How good 
is the satellite link under adverse weather conditions?"  
(shankar@ulysses.att.com)
 
A11:	Given the choice, I don't ride in heavy weather... but I don't 
always have a choice.  All enclosures are waterproof, and a fabric 
cover can be velcro'd over the control console.
	The satellite link is not noticeably affected by rainy weather -- 
additional road experience will yield data about wider extremes.  
There may be some measurable attenuation visible on the 
maintenance screen, but I doubt it will be enough to block 
communication entirely.  This is 14 GHz spread spectrum.
 
 
Q12:	"Apart from using captured solar energy to run the computers 
on-board, do you also use it to give some power boost to your bike, 
especially in situations where you have to climb uphill with all that 
load?"  (shankar@ulysses.att.com)
 
A12:	Ah, that would be pleasant.  But the numbers don't work:  I 
have 82 watts of panels, and the 45 amp-hour battery is pretty 
much reserved for computers, communciations, and lighting.  A 
variable-reluctance motor-generator from Semifusion is being 
developed for the regenerative braking system, and calculations 
suggest that if we dump the raw solar bus into it (motor mode) the 
boost is roughly equivalent to a 2 kilogram push.  This will be nice on 
level ground, but down in the noise on a steep hill (without adding 
heavy gearing... this is a hub motor/generator).  Of course, I could 
always load up on batteries for a serious assist, but that's more 
weight... and I've already blown the load budget on other equipment.
 
 
Q13:	"You probably don't ride much on main highways or on the 
freeway... where do you go?  Dirt roads would be difficult due to 
your sensitive equipment... how could you get from place to place?  
Also, how fast can you go?  And I'm astounded that you're not 
robbed or vandalized on a regular basis.  Do you carry a lot of clothes 
or other personal belongings besides the computer stuff?  Also, not to 
be nosy, but are you independently wealthy?"  
(kris@babbage.ecs.csus.edu)
 
A13:	<grin>  Last question first....  not at all!  I'm a hand-to-mouth 
freelancer, which has occasionally been the literal truth:  take a 
subscription order on the road and pedal happily to the next grocery 
store with 15 whole dollars to spend!
	As to road choices -- most parts of the country have a rich 
variety of back roads, county roads, farm roads... the only problem is 
finding documentation.  They don't show up on the atlases or gas 
station maps (which only show cyclists where NOT to go).  The 
solution involves research:  acquiring county maps and DeLorme 
atlases, asking cyclists, trying to make sense of often-distorted local 
advice, and very soon, using CDROM map databases.  You are right 
about dirt roads; they're a drag.  Sand and gravel are even worse.
	How fast?  Depends on what I had for breakfast.  I usually 
think in terms of 10 mph average throughout the day, which varies 
widely with terrain and wind.  I've had it up to 50.5 mph with a 
gravity assist and am often slogging along at 2 mph up hills.
	I've never been seriously robbed or vandalized (except for a 
stolen Walkman in Palm Springs).  There have been some close calls, 
but the techno-bike talking to intruders and bristling with antennas 
rather gives the impression of alien technology and power.  Those I 
trust least are also the ones most intimidated by the machine (for the 
most part, anyway... the exceptions can be terrifying).
	Finally, yes... I carry a full suite of camping gear, cooking 
equipment, tools, clothing, and so on.  BEHEMOTH is home.
 
 
Q14:	"What is your motivation, and how long do you intend to do 
this for?"  (rnk@sei.cmu.edu)
 
A14:	Fun is the bottom line!  This whole gambit is a blend of all my 
passions:  bicycling, writing, ham radio, computers, networking, 
publishing, travel, adventure, romance, and play.  I'm absolutely 
addicted to the energy of on-the-road beginnings, exciting new 
technology, overcoming traditional limits, making equipment do 
amusing things, communicating around the globe with solar power, 
and meeting amazing people in Dataspace and face to face.
	How long?  I have no idea.
 
 
Q15:	"Are you planning to visit <insert place name here>?"
 
A15:	Unknown beyond "A5" above.  I will attempt to keep this 
distribution alias updated with my location and plans as they evolve.  
If you'd like to be in my hospitality database, arrange a visit, throw a 
party, ride with me, or otherwise get together -- please email me 
when I seem to be gradually nearing your part of the world (often 
such invitations have a significant effect on my route, so don't wait 
until I'm in your back yard to get in touch).
 
 
Q16:	"In the [Information Week] picture it looks as though you have 
some sort of CRT device in front of your right eye?"  
(ted@jhuhyg.sph.jhu.edu)
 
A16:	Yup -- that's the Private Eye display from Reflection 
Technology.  It presents a 720 x 280 red image that appears to float 
in space in front of me, just below my normal field of vision (like 
bifocals).  Controlled by one of the boards in the Ampro "Core 
Module" stack, it is the primary console device for the DOS 
environment and works amazingly well.
 
 
Q17:	"I was interested in the 'ultrasonic beam generated from the 
helmet that serves the same function as a mouse'" 
(jaffe@roses.stanford.edu)
 
A17:	Actually, the beam is generated from the console and sensed 
by three helmet-mounted transducers.  This is essentially a hacked 
Personics head mouse -- producing quadrature events as a function 
of phase and doppler data resulting from head movement.  Michael 
Butler and I interfaced this (trivially) with the innards of a Mac ADB 
mouse, and the job was done.  In a future issue, I'll report on how it 
works in the the windy, noisy, wet, bouncing conditions of the road.
 
 
Q18:	"Can you actually read your mail [while pedaling] or does a 
voice system read it to you?  Can you actually type while riding, or 
do you speak it (or tap it in code)?"  (josh@edsi.plexus.com)
 
A18:	Depending on conditions, mood, and other applications, I can do 
either -- the basic mail spool environment is Eudora on the Mac, and 
text can be displayed on the console screen, routed to the Private 
Eye, or piped to the Audapter synthesizer.
	And yes, I type while riding -- that's a major requirement.  
Force-sensing resistors from Interlink are built into the grips, 
scanned by a Microchip PIC and Maxim A-D/mux, and passed to the 
controller of an Infogrip BAT chord keyboard.  This appears via a 
DOS TSR as a console device.  A similar setup allows direct entry to 
the Mac or the trio of New Micros FORTH boards that do the dirty 
work.  I do have voice recognition (Covox) but it is far too slow for 
free text entry, and Morse code would be very cumbersome for 
computing (though I can do it while running HF mobile CW ham 
radio).
 
 
Q19:	"What about your family?  Do you have a bicycle for your 
sweetheart?"  (hopkins@select.enet.dec.com)
 
A19:	<grin>  Well, I did have a brief flirtation with marriage about 
10 years ago, but that would be essentially incompatible with this 
lifestyle.  I traveled 10,000 miles solo, then took on a companion 
named Maggie for another 6,000.  She has since done some touring 
on her own and we have decided to eschew interdependency... but 
we're having a go at sharing RAGBRAI and points beyond anyway.  
And yes, she has her own bike -- a Ryan Vanguard recumbent with 
homemade trailer carrying a cat, photolab, 2-meter ham radio, 
laptop, and solar panel.  Ah, the social lives of high-tech nomads....
 
 
Q20:	"I don't believe a word of this.  Where can I see a picture of the 
crazy thing?"  (wordy@bikelab.sun.com)
 
A20:	Check the July issue of Discover Magazine, which just hit the 
stands this week.  Also, the June 19 issue of Information Week, and 
supposedly the August Bicycling Magazine.
 
------------
 
22K of text again!  Sheesh... that's more than enough, and besides, it's 
20 questions.  (If you're wondering about the format change from 
previous issues, it's because I'm now writing on the Mac instead of 
the SPARC -- partly to get ready for the road, and partly to make the 
text more generic for use on GEnie and other non-internet services.)
 
 
Cheers from the bikelab!
 
 
	Steven K. Roberts
	Nomadic Research Labs
 
	wordy@bikelab.sun.com
	GEnie, AOL, MCI, Portal:  wordy
 
 
 
 
 
1809.10LJOHUB::CRITZJohn Ellis to ride RAAM '91Thu Jul 11 1991 16:4110
    	Latest BICYCLING (August 1991) has a 3-page article
    	(starting on page 56) about the BEHEMOTH. Pictures
    	and everything.
    
    	Country of Origin: U.S.
    	Price (estimated): $1.2 million
    
    	This thing is even more expensive than Chip's Merlin 8-|>
    
    	Scott
1809.11Another article with picturesDRIFT::WOODLaughter is the best medicineFri Jul 12 1991 16:0710
This months Discover magazine (July 1991) has a 5 page article, complete with 
pictures.

What a bike!  

or should that be  

What, a bike?

John
1809.12LJOHUB::CRITZJohn Ellis to ride RAAM '91Fri Jul 12 1991 17:075
    	Seriously, does this fella expect to pedal this thing?
    
    	I mean, 350 pounds of bike and equipment.
    
    	Scott
1809.13:-)NOVA::FISHERRdb/VMS DinosaurMon Jul 15 1991 10:245
    But, Scott, recumbents are soooo aerodynamic...
    
    :-)
    
    ed
1809.14LJOHUB::CRITZJohn Ellis to ride RAAM '91Mon Jul 15 1991 12:033
    	Man, this one would have to be!
    
    	Scott
1809.15low gearsULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindMon Jul 15 1991 13:477
    The gear  range  is 8" to about 130". Outrigger wheels can be used
    for  stability  at  low  speed. Since my bike weighs more than 200
    lbs.  loaded and has a 20" low gear, a 530 lb. bike with an 8" low
    gear  seems  about right. (Those loaded weights include the rider,
    of course.)

--David
1809.16It's on the roadULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindWed Jul 17 1991 18:3460
The Launch
Steven K. Roberts
7/17/91
 
 
"The difference between art and work is that work has a deadline."
    -- Dave Berkstresser
 
 
Extremely short update here, folks -- we're out the door in minutes!
I have half a Bikelab report done on the Mac, but the Mac is packed and
that file will be obsolete by the time I see it again.  Ran out of time.
 
The last couple of weeks have been a study in sleeplessness, stress,
and the inspired hacking of a dedicated team of volunteers.  There has
been tremendous progresss in bringing up basic systems and establishing
an infrastructure for future work... audio crosspoint system is wired
and awaiting final board rev from Sun Circuits, the communications bay
has been fully packaged, cellular phone hardware is in place, the Mac
works on bike power, headmouse is wired, handlebar keyboard in and wired,
and much more.  
 
Steve desJardins just completed the landing-gear assembly, a wondrous
and eccentric device that allows me to deploy or retract 6" wheels at
the push of a button, using an air cylinder and some pneumatic controls
donated by SMC of San Jose.  Neat stuff.
 
Also, the helmet cooling system is done -- Life Support Systems provided
the helmet heat exchanger, and Carlson Technology took care of the
ice tank, pump, and fittings.  The net effect is a little hand crank
pump in easy arm's reach, driving ice water through my helmet and to a
sip tube with bite valve.  Should make a big difference in Iowa!
 
Anyway, there's much more, but I have a rental truck to load and 30 hours
of driving between now and Friday night.   Off to Council Bluffs, Iowa
and the start of a very strange adventure aboard something far too heavy
to pedal <shudder>.... back with more reports as soon as the net connection
gets switched over to the satellite and dialup links!
 
Cheers from the bikelab-on-wheels.....
 
 
     Steve Roberts
 
 
 
Oh -- one more thing.  All back issues of Notes from the Bikelab are now
on ftp.telebit.com in the /pub/nomad directory.  This is being maintained
by David Harris (zonker@napa.telebit.com if you have any questions), who
has also been helping immensely with the wiring.
 
Also, we have some T-Shirts for sale -- a color picture of the bike under
the name BEHEMOTH (with the acronym spelled out below).  Very high-quality
graphics.  On the back is my quote, "Art without engineering is dreaming;
engineering without art is calculating."  These are $20 postpaid from 
the base office:  Nomadic Research Labs, P.O. Box 2185, El Segundo, CA 90245.
 
 
And now, back to the road at last!
1809.17Any news?BALZAC::DESVIGNESDiesel frogThu Sep 26 1991 07:057
    Hello,
    
    What's become of Steven K. Roberts? Has he published anything since the
    last report? I've been watching this note regularly and nothing has
    happenned for quite a while...
    
    /Ben
1809.18RUTILE::MACFADYENJust react naturally &quot; %DVC-I-BOOKBUILT,Thu Sep 26 1991 09:591
He ran into a car door...
1809.19prepared for contingenciesSHALOT::ELLISJohn Lee Ellis - assembly requiredThu Sep 26 1991 10:415
    
    ...which triggered the power lasers in the BEHEMOTH's RUMP unit
    to aim and vaporize not only the car door but the car.  :-)
    
    -john
1809.20FTP access to Bike lab notesULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindThu Sep 26 1991 11:4881
    Sorry, I let my salary continuation plan get in the way.


From:	DECWRL::"Steve.Roberts@Corp.Sun.COM" "Steven K. Roberts"
To:	Nomadness@bikelab.Corp.Sun.COM 
CC:	
Subj:	"Notes from the Bikelab" via FTP 

Hi --
   I've had a number of requests for back issues of the Bikelab Reports
via ftp, and finally have an answer for you.  Here, in the words of 
David K. Z. Harris of Telebit, is the information......
      Cheers,
      Steve Roberts
 
 
----- Begin Included Message -----
 
From zonker@napa.Telebit.COM Mon Jun 24 21:05:24 1991
Subject: Bikelab Status Reports now online!
 
	This news just in... The complete archive set (1-11 so far)
of the Bikelab Status Reports are now on the ftp.telebit.com
server, in the /pub/nomad directory.  This is an Anonymous FTP
server, and files may be read freely (instructions follow).
 
	To get to the files, invoke FTP and specify the telebit
host by site name or by address (ftp.telebit.com or 143.191.3.1)...
 
	  -  ftp ftp.telebit.com
 
	When you are connected, you will be given a login prompt.
Use the name "anonymous" (all lower case)...
 
	  -  Name (yourusername): anonymous
 
	When it asks for "ident as password", what it wants is your
email address at the site you're calling from...
 
	  -  Password: username@site.ext
 
	At this point, you will be in the /pub directory. To get to 
the nomad directory, just type "cd nomad"...
 
	  -  ftp> cd pub/nomad
 
	And then you can get a directory listing the files available.
("dir" is like an ls -l, while "ls" is a plain list by name.) You can
get a list of the available FTP commands by typing "?"...
 
	  -  ftp> dir
 
	When you have found the name of the file(s) that you want, you
type "get " followed by the name of the file you want.  If you want to
put it someplace other than the directory on your machine where you
invoked FTP, specify the path (and optional name) after the filename 
(this is all case-sensitive)...
 
	  -  ftp> get Bikelab.sr-1 ~/bike/sr.1
 
	When you have pulled all the files that you want, you can
(please) log off the server politely by typing "bye". Then you can
leave the FTP program by typing "quit"...
 
	  -  ftp> bye
	  -  logged off
	  -  ftp> quit
	  -  (your local prompt, Home Sweet System!)
 
	If you have problems accesing the server, or getting the files,
please let me know by mail (zonker@napa.telebit.com) or by  phone
at (408-745-3074).  I'll try to respond to you quickly.
 
			Regards!
 
			David K. Z. Harris  (N6UOW)
			Telebit NetBlazer Technical Support Engineer
 
 
----- End Included Message -----
 
1809.21The Rythms of the RoadULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindThu Sep 26 1991 12:05358

The Rhythms of the Road

by Steven K. Roberts (Nomadic Research Labs) 

East Lansing, MI -- September 20, 1991

 

NOTE:  It's been a long time since my last update... I haven't published 
a word since leaving Silicon Valley in July for this new journey.  This 
tangled retrospective is an attempt to catch up and report on the 
highlights.



     1.  The view from Menomenee, Michigan (9/8/91)


The rhythm of the road is once again the backdrop of my life.  After 
three years of building and planning -- a time characterized by simple 
measured tempos of rising urgency -- the roadsound is now complex and 
impassioned:  sensual undercurrents laced with technoid syncopation and 
sizzling cadenzas of childlike play.  It's a music without idiom, 
evolving from moment to moment as whim and chance dictate -- one day 
somber, the next frenetic.  It's wild and free, the ultimate melody, 
primal yet civilized... and I can't get it out of my head. 

Nor do I want to.  It will change form again, of course, but being 
essentially formless that's hardly a problem.  (Noticing that I gravitate 
always to water, largely for the lack of traffic and hills, I'm having 
mad thoughts of human-powered watercraft...).  But today it's the Road 
Host Motel in Menomenee, just into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan after 
weeks in Wisconsin, and it's long past time for an online update. 

Life aboard BEHEMOTH is filled with change and adventure on so many 
different scales that it almost defies characterization.  On one level, 
there's the endless tedium of packing and unpacking entirely too much 
stuff (580 pounds total).  There are hills, slow sweaty ordeals that can 
turn into sudden disasters -- like in Paddock Lake when I lost traction 
halfway up a gravel grade, locked my brakes and put my feet down to 
ponder the problem, and had the Disk Brake from Hell suddenly unscrew and 
send me rolling out of control downhill until the trailer jacknifed and 
dropped the whole rig onto my leg.  I remained trapped in mild agony 
until a passing motorcyclist stopped, quizzically, to rescue me. 

Yes, it can be a pain.  Two days ago outside Oconto, my friend Susan and I 
stopped for a lakeside walk and the trailer hitch broke off (.080 wall 
4130 CrMo 1-inch tubing broke clear through... we're talking STRESS).  
But with pain comes pleasure:  the failure occurred in an undocumented 
county park with perfect campsites... and we frolicked the day away while 
using ham radio to coordinate the next morning's rescue by Amore's towing 
service and Dan the welder.  Warm, clear night, stars alive above the 
whisper of Green Bay... campfire warm and crackling, bodies energetic and 
healthy from hundreds of pedaling miles, Kahlua and soy milk warming 
within, a lunch of fresh perch sizzled in garlic and butter... Frame 
fracture?  Equipment failure?  So what? 

That's much of the appeal, you know.  When it doesn't matter where you 
are, delays mean nothing and roadside repairs are just another twist in 
the adventure.  Eventually, these wheels will turn south to track the 
fall colors, but the general attitude right now is one of ambling hand-
in-hand down a country lane. 

Speaking of country lanes, Wisconsin has to take the prize for excellent 
roads.  There is a whole network of "letter roads" here, with names like 
Y and BB, and for the most part they are smooth and free of traffic.  
Aided by the DeLorme Atlas of the state, we've been meandering up along 
Lake Michigan with hardly any moments of panic except in towns big enough 
to be painted in orange on the map (indicating places where people are 
stressed and in a hurry). 

This all calls to mind another musical metaphor that struck me on the 
first trip... Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition." If you're 
familiar with this, you know what I mean; if not, check it out.  A 
"promenade" theme recurs throughout the work, interspersed with musical 
sketches suggestive of browsing an art museum.  Life on the road is like 
that... the undercurrent of pedaling merely the thread that binds a 
diverse succession of experiences ranging from hot romance to high 
science. 

All of which makes a retrospective of a few hundred miles almost 
impossible.  I did this, then that.  Susan read about me in the late 
lamented DISCOVER magazine, joined me, and we did this for a while.  Now 
we're doing that, and soon she'll leave and I'll do something else.  
Throughout, BEHEMOTH lumbers along, catapulting me in its recumbersome 
way from one mad interlude to the next.  The experiences seem framed by 
place and time, linked only by wheels and chance. 

There are images, though.  I recall an afternoon on John Sawhill's farm in 
Winterset, Iowa... after a broken hub on the first night out aborted my 
participation in RAGBRAI (the driving event that launched me from Silicon 
Valley on deadline).  John, an active ham (WA0O) and repeater owner, had 
hosted a party for all the RAGBRAI radio-folk, and when they moved on, 
Maggie and I stayed for a week to repair the systems and get to know the 
hogs and cats, dogs and cattle. 

I pitched camp by the old manure spreader out back and spent my days 
fixing things and making notes.  One day the bike was in the sun, the CD 
stereo system issuing fine clear Artie Shaw into the Iowa afternoon.  
Hogs grunted, cattle lowed, insects chirred and chittered.  Somewhere a 
tractor growled over a field beneath a brown puff of dust.  Time passed 
slowly.  I fired up the Qualcomm satellite terminal to send a message to 
San Diego, and within the little white dome a feedhorn swept azimuthally 
and locked on on the GTE GSTAR bird 25,000 miles away.  I sat surrounded 
by 3 keyboards, the Private Eye display buzzing in my helmet, a Poqet PC 
displaying notes, the console Mac running a comm package.  Big John 
motored over on his Honda 4-wheeler, and 70-ish Jessie, his mom, strolled 
out from the house followed by five head o' cat.

It was a contrast of technologies and cultures.  Jessie started dancing 
around the bike to the big-band jazz, the clarinet articulate and 
playful.  The satellite antenna quivered nervously, passing spread-
spectrum data.  John sat bemused on the big 4 wheeler; ham antennas raked 
the sky; storybook clouds puffed along; cats rubbed against my legs; hogs 
snuffled and snorted.  It was one of those moments, a tableau forever 
etched into my brain as a sort of freeze-frame fantasy image. 

There have been others.  More than ever before, BEHEMOTH is a techno-
door-opener... I rolled onto the 6800-acre grounds of Fermilabs, home of 
the massive proton accelerator and playground of physicists from the 
world over.  Armed with one contact there and the bike, I ended up 
spending two days... giving an informal colloquium, doing a video, and 
best of all... getting a grand tour from an insider's perspective and 
spending a couple of nights in the Rutgers house with visiting 
physicists.  What a playground:  gizmology on a massive scale, with all 
the best features of industry and academia.  Of course, on my way out of 
the labs, I was pulled over by an officious security cop who demanded my 
license, fished around in his head looking for a charge to bust me on, 
and finally said, "Uh, we prohibit vehicles of the racing wheelchair 
variety from all areas other than bike paths, due to their slow speed.  I 
have decided to allow you to proceed this time, however, due to the fact 
that you are headed offsite.  But if you intend to return, I suggest you 
register this vehicle with the security office to prevent further 
difficulty." 

Yeah, right.

At this writing, just through with Wisconsin and beginning the Upper 
Peninsula of Michigan, I can report with a sort of subdued glee that 
despite all sorts of frustrations and unfinished bike projects the 
nomadic life is working.  Details to follow... but it's time to play. 



     2. East Lansing, MI (9/18/91)


Yikes.  It happened again.  I lugged a file around for ten days as it 
gradually cooled, becoming stale and dated.  OK, here's the latest, and 
this time I'm going to get this finished and uploaded before hitting the 
road south -- cold weather or no. 

First, I must explain the overload.  We're all familiar with this -- I 
don't believe I've met more than a dozen productive people in my life who 
are not beset by constant stress over all the things they're not getting 
done.  My chosen lifestyle merely intensifies this, as it does 
everything.  I just transferred my internet mail spool file today from 
the SPARCstation in my lab at Sun to a friend's computer here at MSU in 
East Lansing.  617K of unread incoming mail!  This is more than a little 
embarrassing, folks, and if some of it is from you please accept my 
apologies.  

One work-in-progress item that should get the mail flowing more smoothly 
is the software for the Qualcomm satellite link.  A couple of resident 
wizards at the company have written some custom code to link the terminal 
to the bike's Mac, and another package will handle the gateway between 
the satellite hub and internet via a Sun workstation.  This is a major 
design goal of the bike, and all key links are tested and ready to 
integrate:  more-or-less real-time mail, 24 hours a day, via the bird.  
I'll keep you posted.  In the meantime, please keep mail to me to an 
absolute minimum -- it's just piling up pending the occasional ftp to a 
friendly system (I can dial up and rlogin, of course, but let's see... 
617K at 2400 baud, long distance...) 

The bike mechanics are stressed by the weight, but are more or less 
holding together.  My next actual bikelab report will be a collection of 
short product reviews from the field, but in general the weak points seem 
to be, not surprisingly, the components made for normal bicycles.  I have 
broken one chain and one freewheel, cursed fluently at my brakes, and 
blown one front tire.  I'm gradually weeding out most of the weaknesses, 
but gravity is still gravity.  On steep hills, in the 7.9-inch granny 
gear, I creak along at 1 mph or so, depending on the landing gear and 
component integrity to prevent a recurrence of the Paddock Lake wreck.  
Cruising speed on level ground seems to average 9 mph, and downhill is an 
adrenalin-pumping thrill as always, intensified by horrific images of 
what would happen in a high-speed wreck. 

The function-to-weight ratio is still far short of potential -- my 
departure deadline served the necessary purpose of getting my ass out the 
door, but left many things undone.  Next on the agenda is a layover of 
about 6 months (after continuing down through Ohio to Louisville) to 
bring the system to an acceptable level of completion that will make 
open-ended travel here and abroad effective and satisfying.  Obviously, 
the communication links and mobile computing capability are of highest 
priority.  Power systems, lights, stereo, and ham radio are already 
working very well.  (One note on the stereo, by the way -- CDs can be 
trashed by extreme temperature cycling.  The disks carried most often in 
the map case up on the sun-drenched console are beginning to fail.) 

Business:  It's as complex and crazy as ever.  As a career, this is both 
successful and haphazard -- cash flow a random mix of consulting, 
freelancing, publishing, trade-show gigs, speaking engagements, product 
sales, and happenstance.  There's always something afoot -- recent 
filmings with NHK, NBC's Earth Journal, and First Look leading to another 
round of exposure during the next month or so.  More than ever, this 
whole gambit is a three-way symbiosis between bike, sponsors, and 
media... with my role an amusing blend of work and play, love and sweat, 
pedaling and hacking.

Then there's the social side of all this, perhaps the infusion of energy 
that really holds it all together (would I do this for long in monastic 
isolation?  I doubt it...).   The thrill of beginnings, the exuberance of 
romance, the unexpected discoveries... these still drive me down the road 
as they have since 1983.  The down side of the human issue, however, is 
the sheer impossibility of explaining this thing on the street.  Back in 
the old days, a few comments could summarize the Winnebiko to anyone's 
satisfaction.  Now, it takes at least an hour to do BEHEMOTH justice, so 
more and more I seem to be giving people a polite brush-off unless I 
really want to talk to them.  "Hey, what IS all this?" someone asks.  
"Just a computerized bicycle," I reply, quickly fastening my helmet and 
pushing off.  "The solar panels run everything but the wheels.  Seeya!" 

Maggie and I parted company, a condition which may or may not be 
permanent but which restored much-needed perspective to both of us 
(despite the agony of tearful parting hugs that rainy day in Illinois).  
After 5 years of shared adventure, our paths diverged in Joliet -- she 
headed southeast to Marion, Ohio on her bike (carrying the cat); I headed 
north through the western suburbs of Chicago, visiting companies and at 
last finding the Fox River bike trail that can perhaps be credited with 
getting me out of that zoo alive.  I'd forgotten the general hostility of 
city traffic... the occasional passing bozo (usually in an American-made 
pickup/camper, most often red) who zooms by with only inches to spare, 
yelling out the window for me to "get the f*** off the road!"  I never 
seem to have time to explain that the real problem is with lousy highway 
designs that funnel cars and bikes into the same narrow concrete trough, 
bounded by square curbs and trimmed with broken glass and potholes.  "I 
would if I could!" I want to shout, but he wouldn't understand anyway. 

On the trail, life improved.  Impromptu meetings yielded new friendships, 
evenings of dining and story-telling, hints of intrigue.  I camped in 
Paddock Lake, just into Wisconsin (after getting trapped under the 
bicycle, a most embarrassing situation), and mingled with the campground 
culture.  "When you first came in here, dude, I thought you were a 
robot!" a little girl told me, going on to lament:  "I wish I had a bike 
like that so I'd be popular."  An 8-year-old boy named Steven hung around 
all evening, reminding me so much of myself at that age that I didn't 
even mind.  The next morning, he rode out with me on his BMX bike, riding 
alongside and pushing me up the hills, quietly asking questions, and 
dreaming of a life beyond the limits.  He turned back reluctantly, with a 
long sad look, and the impression lasted with both of us. 

Racine... a visit to Master Appliance, maker of the wondrous butane 
Ultratorch (the only decent soldering iron and heat shrinker for the 
road... and it's even self-igniting).  A swirl of media and walks on the 
Lake Michigan shore; hot tub evenings and smiles with a new friend who 
found herself sparked and amused by the life-changing implications of a 
career founded on passion.  On, reluctantly, to Milwaukee... a week in a 
hotel for the human-powered vehicle races and an NBC filming, the city 
providing another lifesaving bike route (76) and not at all as hostile 
and dangerous as all this recent Jeffrey Daumer publicity would have you 
believe (though it is still a big city, not the kind of place I like to 
ride). 

And then Newburg -- the Wellspring hostel.  This was unexpected, another 
of those delightful experiences that would merit its own article had I 
been keeping up with these reports as planned instead of trying to cram 
two active months into a hurried 21K retrospective.  Wellspring is a 
hostel, but is primarily an "intentional community," one of a growing 
number of homes created by people, not otherwise related, who want to 
live as a productive family.  I stayed a week, wiring antenna monitoring 
and audio processing equipment in the bike's ham shack (the J-Com Magic 
Notch audio filter is AWESOME!), helping a bit in the garden, reading and 
writing by the pool, and meeting Susan.  This was our rendezvous point:  
she drove from Dayton to East Lansing, bussed to Newburg, biked with me 
to Escanaba (stopping in Manitowoc to boat and jet-ski), then trucked 
back to Lansing in order to drive to Cincinnati and start walking to 
school.  A tour-de-force of transportation alternatives... punctuated by 
the magic of like-spirited humans at play. 

Off we went, eyeing each other curiously across a few feet of asphalt.  
Susan is 20, a lively young Welsh-Italian woman in that carefree stage of 
life characterized by intellectual alacrity, insatiable curiosity, career 
uncertainty, general playfulness, and vast untapped resources of untamed 
youthful passion.  We had never met before... but something in the 
Discover article (July 1991) touched her and induced her to track me 
down.  The nervous anticipation had been building for a couple of months, 
though we carefully avoided any expectation of romance.  So here we were 
at last, pedaling into an adventure of unknown proportions:  a beautiful 
black-haired theatre student and a seasoned high-tech nomad old enough to 
be her father.  <pang> 

The trip took on a dreamlike quality.  Electronics drifted into the 
background (except for the all-important CD stereo system, power 
management hardware, and the 2-meter console rig that yielded trailer 
frame repair, the jet-ski day, a house of our own in Escanaba, and the 
usual plethora of new contacts).  It was the timeless dance of the sexes, 
spiced with dramatic age difference and the constantly-changing texture 
of the road:  we traveled north along the lakeshore, camping, exploring, 
learning.  The energy of beginnings is always potent, but when 
intensified by a rapidly nearing ending it is almost nuclear... a fusion 
reaction fed by fission chips roasted over an open fire. 

Dirty dancing in a Green Bay nightclub after conning our way past the ID 
checker.  Midnight frolicking on playground equipment, a couple of kids 
drunk with silliness.  Serious campfire discussion of nomadic business 
possibilities.  Chocolate, Rachmananov, and jalapeno peppers.  Bowling, 
photos in a stadium field, swimming, boating, and oh yes, cycling.  
Slipping in darkness through a forest, ferns to our waists, 
circumnavigating a group of houses just for the hell of it.  Teasing 
people with our curious relationship:  I toggled between daddy, brother, 
lover, and technoid pack mule for a rich heiress traveling the world. 

Hey, don't frown disapprovingly; this is my job!  As the pendulum swings 
abruptly back to a brain-dead morality of neo-Christian mythos, erosion 
of personal freedoms, and well-founded but excessive AIDS paranoia, those 
of us who still celebrate LIFE must do what we can to remind people of 
their true nature... and if it takes the exuberant example of a playful 
existence, well, it's a lousy job but someone's gotta do it.  

Ahem.  Don't get me started.  It's just that more and more, I see the 
fear:  a sort of wide-eyed envy tinged with horror, people cocooning in 
safety and frightened of the unknown.  There's a widening gulf between 
them what do and them what don't... couples frozen into de facto 
marriages; more people retreating into religion; chance encounters 
friendly but guarded; an increasing sense of being an alien on the road.  
In a twisted sense, this adventure is becoming a sacred responsibility -- 
anyone capable of spreading wild notions of freedom is obligated to do 
so... before it's too late and we plunge into the kind of intellectual 
dark ages that would delight the current political administration. 

Gee, this isn't just a bike trip, is it?  Maybe I'm promoting a cause 
after all, even though I always deny it. 

Anyway, the three weeks passed too quickly, a time that in retrospect 
seems somewhere on the order of 3-4 months.  Funny thing about time 
perception on the road:  it's so rich with experiences great and small 
that the past seems vast and the present flies by... the precise opposite 
of the way we see it when sleepily turning 9-to-5 cranks.  Before I could 
grapple with the shock, she was gone -- back to Ohio and the beginning of 
a school year. 

Which brings me to the present.  I'm staying with Joe & Pam Tyner, owners 
of StarPath Systems, makers of a remarkable multitasking environment for 
DOS systems called VMOS.  Ahead lies the university at Ann Arbor and a 
jaunt through Ohio to visit everyone, and then on to Louisville to see my 
parents for the first time in almost 3 years.  And then... back to 
Silicon Valley again to bring the function-to-weight ratio up to a level 
that will make this even more fun, if that's possible.  As I said, I'm 
having thoughts of watercraft, but BEHEMOTH has to pay his dues first... 
there are miles to go yet...  

Cheers from the road!!! 


        -- Steven K. Roberts
 
1809.22Shakedown and product reviews #13.ULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindThu Oct 31 1991 12:50677
---------------------- 
NOTES FROM THE BIKELAB 
Issue #13 -- 10/30/91
by Steven K. Roberts
----------------------

Copyright (C) 1991 by Steven K. Roberts.  All Rights Reserved.
(Intact reposting and free distribution is OK with permission; 
personal forwarding is OK without.)


IN THIS ISSUE:
	Shakedown post-mortem
	Jitensha --> Jidoosha
	The BEHEMOTH Road Show coming your way? 
	18 product mini-reviews


"Pardon me, do you have any Grey Poupon?"
	-- unknown cyclist on RAGBRAI, passing me on a 90-degree
	day as I cruised easily with Cusco on the stereo and ice water 
	circulating through my helmet.


Shakedown post-mortem
---------------------

Well, I'm back at the lab.  Three months of adventure have passed 
since I left the clutter that once again stares me in the face, and the 
perspective thus gained helps me see it as just that.  The shakedown 
served its intended purposes:  highlighting what's important, 
revealing the unnecessary, smoking out poor components, and 
interjecting amusement into something that was becoming entirely 
too serious.  It also led to a major change, but more on that in a 
moment.

This was a strange one, as tours go -- it had a beginning and an end.  
In our last installment, I was languishing in Lansing trying to get it 
together enough to roll again after the epoch of Susan... pedaling 
southeast to Ann Arbor and thence into Ohio.  I lounged about in Joe 
Tyner's house for a couple of weeks, becoming part of the family, 
learning for the nth time the subtle, maddening truth in Moon's 
observation that the wanderer's danger is to find comfort.  Days were 
spent studying Japanese and puttering; nights passed lazily with 
family dinner, good conversation, and the always-available cable TV 
in my basement hideaway.

One weekend my friend from Racine flew over the lake for an 
interlude of play, and we cruised the campus scene -- stopping 
innocently in the bookstore to browse.  My current educational 
obsession in the foreground, thinking more of the joys of learning 
than the horrors of packing, I innocently bought six Japanese 
language books and a couple of CDs to go with them.

Something changed at that moment, though I didn't know it yet.  
Jitensha no naka ni Nihongo no hon ga rokusatsu arimasu ne...

You got it.  A couple days later, I awoke in a glow of ambition, 
reassembled the Tyners' hide-a-bed, checked the route to Ann Arbor 
on the map, and performed the familiar ritual of imposing 
granularity onto my vast pile of possessions by stuffing them into 
packs.  I hauled everything out to the driveway, backed BEHEMOTH 
into the brittle Michigan sunshine, started a Cleo Laine CD, and began 
to load up -- stuffing things into familiar corners, maximizing trailer 
packing density to the best of my ability and hoping as always that 
the huge pile on the ground would somehow fit.

But this time, it didn't.  I rearranged and tried again; tucking a few 
things in with the cooling system and even shoving some laundry 
into the pillow bag bungeed atop the manpack, but to no avail.  Hm.  It 
was the book that broke BEHEMOTH's back, so to speak -- that sextet 
of Japanese books pushed my load over the edge.

I sat down and stared at it, suddenly demotivated.  Yeah, I suppose I 
could ship a few things ahead... or even get rid of some stuff if I tried 
hard enough.  But it seemed like too much work.  What I really 
wanted was to get back to the lab and finish the job -- to weave 
together all the standalone systems that were not yet integrated into 
a network, write some code, and make the damn thing talk.  
Continuing from Lansing seemed pointless, anticlimactic.  Susan was 
gone, it was getting cold, and I had six Japanese books that wouldn't 
fit.

The choice was clear.  I went out and bought a mother ship.


Jitensha --> Jidoosha
---------------------

The books were the trigger, but there was a deeper cause.  The 
fundamental flaw in this latest phase of my chronic nomadness is the 
need for a rather substantial base-lab -- at the moment, 1200 square 
feet generously sponsored by Sun Microsystems.  This won't last 
forever, and I've been ignoring the impending crisis:  what am I to 
do with all the support systems when this space is eventually 
converted into something more in line with traditional corporate 
activities?  Cast about for another host company?  Rent something, 
get domestic, and sink into debt?  Impose heavily on a friend, taking 
over a spare room while wandering without easy access to backups 
and major tools?

It turns out that the support systems (or, put more conventionally, 
all my STUFF) can be parsed into four levels of relevance:  stuff that 
lives on the bike, stuff that I need whenever I'm not pedaling, stuff 
that must remain available for backups or eventual integration into a 
conventional <shudder> lifestyle, and stuff I don't need at all.  The 
last category is easy:  trash.  So is the first:  bike packs.  The third 
category calls for a friendly storage space (any volunteers?).  And 
the second calls for a mother ship that's always in the same general 
end of the world -- or at least reachable.  Given the sudden rash of 
invitations to exhibit BEHEMOTH at trade shows and speaking gigs, 
the idea of a mobile "base lab" suddenly makes a lot of sense.  Not a 
sag wagon, but a relocatable shop and hiding place.

And so, to cut to the chase, I bought a new 20-foot Wells Cargo 
trailer and an '87 GMC van to pull it.  Having blown about $3,000 on 
rental trucks in the last year, a purchase was easy to rationalize... so 
I spent a few days on bike tie-downs and basic furniture, got 
everything registered and insured at my new Michigan address, and 
hit the road -- breezing through Ann Arbor, Adrian, Marion, 
Columbus, Cincinnati, and Louisville before zooming across the vast 
and desolate midsection of the US, enroute once again to Silicon 
Valley. 

I hasten to add that this gas-guzzling monster (about 1.7 light years 
per cubic mile of gasoline) is NOT an alternative to the bike:  it's a 
mobile lab.  More than a semantic difference, this implies a fourth 
layer in the hierarchy of nomadic components:

1 -- a detachable manpack with basic survival tools and laptop
2 -- BEHEMOTH
3 -- the Mother Ship, cabled into the bike when berthed
4 -- a home base (one of these days)

All these will network together to take advantage of each others' 
processing, power, and communication resources.  At the moment, 
this translates into the existing bike/manpack systems, with a 
connector for the mother ship's umbilicus when I'm running on dead 
dinosaurs.  (To get specific, one of the first tasks is to mount a laptop 
on the van's console, and provide a pair of audio channels to the 
bike's crosspoint matrix.  This will take care of cellular phone, ham 
radio, database access, and satellite datacomm (assuming, of course, 
that the antennas are remoted to the outside of the big metal box 
when the bike's parked inside).  I'll also add some solar panels to
the trailer's roof to keep things alive when I'm out pedaling.)

Anyway, I picked up Maggie to return her to the west coast, turned 
the key, and 3,000 miles passed.  (Would I ever say THAT after 
crossing the country by bicycle?  There's the essential difference....  
no matter how bleak the country, interesting things always happen 
when you pedal.  Not so when you sit staring out the window with 
your foot on the gas.)  I'm back at the lab until March, with two trade 
shows on opposite ends of the west coast between now and then to 
help me warm up to the new twist in this lifestyle.  And before I go 
on to the long-awaited mini product reviews, I'd like to put out a 
feeler to this alias...


The BEHEMOTH Road Show coming your way? 
---------------------------------------

I don't think I ever mentioned that I'm not independently wealthy.  
(Freelance writers seldom are, though you'd be surprised at the 
assumptions some people make when they see the bike.)  What this 
means is that I occasionally have to WORK -- whether through the 
much-heralded process of publishing <chuckle>, an occasional 
consulting relationship, or speaking and trade-show gigs.  Now that I 
have the mother ship, emphasis will be on the latter.

If your organization would like to have a close-up look at BEHEMOTH, 
let's talk.  I'm putting together a 1992 tour schedule around North 
America, beginning full time in March (although Bay Area 
appearances between now and then are possible).  I can bring the 
bike to your company, campus, club meeting, or trade show -- and 
make any of a variety of presentations suited to the crowd.  Email 
me if you'd like to explore this further.

(Incidentally, I'll try to be a good little high-tech nomad and publish 
advance notice of any known public showings, riding interludes, or 
media events here on the net -- once they're nailed down.  It 
currently appears that I will be in San Diego in mid-January and 
Seattle at the end of February.)


Product Mini-Reviews
--------------------

One of the main purposes of this recent shakedown cruise through 
Iowa, Illinois, Wisconsin, and Michigan was to subject the new 
equipment to road abuse and see how it survives.  As usual, the 
results were mixed -- some products are stellar performers and 
some are junk.  Since part of my job is to pass along such insights, I 
offer eighteen entirely subjective mini-reviews, presented in the 
order I happened to think of them:


DeLORME ATLASES
Grade:  A+

The best.  These maps are so good that I don't want to do any bicycle 
touring in states that DON'T have them.  At present, DeLorme atlases 
exist for WA, OR, CA, MN, WI, IL, MI, OH, TN, VA, PA, NY, NH, VT, ME, 
and FL.  Packaged like full-size US atlases, they break up each state 
into roughly 23 x 34 mile rectangles -- densely packed with useful 
information.  From a bicycle touring perspective, they show you all 
the roads that automobile drivers never use, and that alone makes 
them well worth their weight on even the lightest bike.  There are 
also listings of parks, campgrounds, natural attractions, wineries, and 
much more.  

If you're touring in any of those states, these are essential.  And -- 
this news just in -- DeLorme is now shipping their CDROM/Windows 
product covering the entire US down to city and county streets.  This 
should be on the bike by the next trip.

Contact:  Charlie Conley, DeLorme Mapping Company, P.O. Box 298, 
Freeport, ME 04032.  (207) 865-4171.


DISK BRAKE FROM HELL
Grade:  D

The component that received the most curses during this past trip 
was a disk brake assembled by Rotator Bicycles from a Magura 
lever/cable assembly, Gramica <sp?> calipers, and racing go-kart disk.

The first problem was a modification to the disk that resulted in 
severe warpage and runout -- not only preventing effective braking 
action but also subjecting me to a maddening clickety-click on every 
wheel revolution as it caught and then released the pads.  That's 
right... not only did I have to haul 580 pounds, but I had to keep my 
brake warm.

A replacement part (this time solid instead of slotted and drilled) 
met me in Wisconsin, which replaced the clicking with a soft 
continuous whisper as the pads dragged smoothly.  I could find no 
adjustment to eliminate this without also eliminating the mushy but 
essential braking action -- since lever travel was the limiting factor.  
I've since noticed that the brazed-on mount (which was done here, 
not by Rotator) might be slightly off-parallel with the disk, and that 
could be part of the problem -- or, hopefully, all of it.  (This is why I 
gave it a grade of D instead of F -- I know the builder and he has a 
well-developed sense of quality engineering... surely he wouldn't 
knowingly ship a product this bad.  Some benefit of the doubt is in 
order, though it doesn't excuse the original warped disk and the 
tendency to unscrew.)

Yes, the other bit of nastiness with this brake is the fact that it's 
simply threaded on to the Phil Wood hub.  This is fine if you're 
trying to stop while moving conventionally forward... but trying to 
keep this machine from rolling backwards down a hill is an exercise 
in faith.  Ya just never know when the disk will suddenly unscrew 
and turn the day into a nightmare... see the story in Bikelab Report 
#12 about the wreck in Paddock Lake that resulted from this 
problem.  Retrofitting a decent disk brake to a heavy bicycle is a 
non-trivial issue, and I'm not really sure how I would do it without 
making a custom hub to support the disk properly.  A monster 
setscrew, trashing the threads?  Loctite, already proven to be a 
disaster in areas that get hot?  Perhaps a narrower thread collar with 
a lockring?

Contact:  Steve Delaire, Rotator Bicycles, 915 Middle Rincon Road, Santa
Rosa, CA 95405


PHIL WOOD HUBS
Grade:  Old model:  C   New model:  A

While on the subject of rear wheels, let's talk about the hub.  On the 
eve of RAGBRAI, my Phil Wood hub failed -- the flanges started 
slipping relative to the stainless hub body.  In the past, I've had 
bearings start floating relative to the body as well (going down a 
mountain in the dark -- very exciting), and the reason for all of this 
is that it was made from 5 independent parts glued together... 
with no true mechanical support.  They were very nice parts, mind 
you; they just didn't always stay together under heavy abuse.  The 
temporary hack for the first day of RAGBRAI involved drilling four 
holes through flange and body and pinning it with short sections of 
DT 14-gauge spokes.  This actually worked, but was on the verge of 
failing after 60 miles.

The company sent me a new model to replace the old, and it was 
built into a 48-spoke undished wheel by Gaylord Hill of Cyclopedia 
(your one-stop HPV accessory shop -- 800-678-1021).  This hub is 
much more solid, and the flanges are part of the all-aluminum model.  
They now have an even newer one that is easily field-serviceable, 
and is available in quick release.  Very good stuff.

Contact:  Peter at Phil Wood Co (408-298-1540)


STEREO SYSTEM
Grade:  A-

This is a multi-vendor subsystem, and as such isn't really a product 
review.  But I do want to report that the Blaupunkt HC-1030 
honeycomb speakers, Yamaha YPA-100 18-watt-per-channel amp, 
and Sony D-T66 Discman CD player with tuner performed extremely 
well.  Audio quality with the speakers built into the RUMP is 
astonishing, with crisp highs and startling bass support (most people 
look around for the OTHER speakers, which don't exist).  The Yamaha 
amp is exceptionally quiet, much more so than the other models I 
tested (including an absolutely AWFUL Blaupunkt unit with built-
in graphic equalizer and a Sony unit that burned twice the standby 
power as this one).

The reason for the A- is the Sony.  The clunky spindle accepts CDs 
reluctantly, and the tuner -- for a $100 premium -- is terrible, 
offering no scan mode, a clumsy user interface, and mediocre 
reception.  Next time out, I'll run a cable from the excellent Sony ICF-
SW1 shortwave with FM stereo, switching that into the amp when I 
need a break from the finite CD library.

Shock mounting was adequate for the average reasonably smooth 
road, but could be better (this is not the vendor's fault, though there 
is a wide range in the market when it comes to CD shock isolation -- 
shop carefully).  The older Sony D-180K appears to be better in that 
department, but I went through two of them with serious electronic 
problems (noisy power supply and clock drift) before switching to 
this model.  What's going on here?  I though Sony products were 
always perfect?


ICOM 725 HF TRANSCEIVER; OUTBACKER ANTENNAS
Grade: A

This first class portable HF ham rig put up with heavy abuse under 
all sorts of shock and vibration conditions, and still let me chat with a 
guy in Verona, Italy while wandering around Michigan.  Easy to use, 
easy to program, no problems.  I've just added the AM/FM and 
narrow-CW modules, and they work great -- in the latter case, much 
better than the ringing and touchy external filter.  The pair of 7-
band Outbacker whips configured as a dipole worked flawlessly atop 
an extendable fiberglass mast, pivoting on a custom assembly made 
by Steve desJardins.  The whole getup looks seriously bizarre when 
deployed, but I'm used to that.

Contact:  Icom America (800) 426-7983
          Outbacker (615) 899-3390


AUTEK QF-1A and WM-1
Grade:  C

These ham-radio products, an external active audio filter and a 
computing SWR bridge and wattmeter, represent a pretty good 
cost/performance ratio.  I repackaged them and got them working 
somewhere in Wisconsin, and am generally satisfied.

But the filter, like most analog approaches to the problem, is touchy 
to operate and introduces ringing and other distortion.  And the 
meter, under some operating conditions, gives negative readings of 
power and SWR!  The review unit at QST does the same thing 
occasionally, relieving fears that I have some kind of strange 
transmission-line problem on the bike.

Nevertheless, the units work well for the price, and have withstood 
the physical abuse better than some of the competitors in the same 
price range.

Contact:  Autek Research, Box 302B, Odessa, FL 33556.


J-COM MAGIC NOTCH FILTER
Grade:  A+

Pure magic.  This bit of wizardry sits betwen your ham transceiver 
and the speaker, constantly scanning (when enabled) for any kind of 
continuous tone (like some bozo tuning up on frequency, or, as is 
common on the bike, a computer-generated birdie).  When it finds 
one, it drops a 30 Hz notch on top of it and it's gone.  That's all there 
is to it -- no knobs to twiddle.  If you have a birdie or heterodyne 
problem, get one.

Contact:  J-Com, P.O. Box 194, Ben Lomond, CA 95005.  (408) 336-3503.


LANDING GEAR
Grade:  A-

This saved me; it's that simple.  Created by Steve desJardins, these 
pneumatically actuated landing gear are deployed for parking, or 
whenever I'm in the ultra-granny gear and pedaling slowly up a 
steep hill.  I quickly reached the point where I could extend and 
retract them on the fly (via a spring-loaded toggle under the seat), 
and stopping halfway up a hill to rest without even putting my feet 
down is now a routine matter.  Without them, starting again would 
be almost impossible.

The wheels are 6" pneumatics built for wheelchairs by Quickie 
Designs.  The main bearing is a modified CQP crank spindle.  Air 
handling components were provided by Frank Fox of SMC 
Pneumatics in San Jose, and Steve did the rest -- including a trailing 
arm shock-cord suspension reminiscent of the old Piper Cub, and a 4-
bar mechanism coupled to a double acting cylinder actuated by 
solenoid-operated valves.  The air supply is the tank originally 
installed for the air horns, and I've just acquired a tiny 12-volt 
piston pump that can recharge it every day or two so I don't have to 
keep finding gas stations or wearing out my right arm.

The downside of the design is that it is not immediately adaptive to 
road surface variations, and thus bad steep roads can be quite 
dangerous.  I've found myself using all kinds of body english trying 
to compensate for road crown, and a surprise bump can almost dump 
me.  Next model should have two independent hydraulic struts that 
attempt to keep the bike vertical by dynamically adjusting their 
downward pressure as a function of force feedback and inclinometer 
data...

This is one of those things that looks like wretched excess but 
actually spells the difference between clumsiness and elegance.  The 
cynical view is that I have just enough hardware to compensate for 
the weight of all this hardware, but I prefer to think of it as art.

This is not a commercial product, but excellent custom mechanical 
design, CAD, or HPV assistance is available on a consulting basis from 
Steve desJardins at 415-591-3737.


OrCAD
Grade:  A

The entire electronic design of the bike is managed within a 
hierarchical file structure of OrCAD sheets.  A full discussion of CAD 
software is beyond the scope of these mini-reviews, but I'm 
continually amazed at the smooth integration and efficiency of this 
package.  The company has just released the new ESP design 
environment (release IV), and even if you never plan to do printed 
circuit boards or PLD's, it's worth it just for the schematic capture.  
OrCAD makes your brain work better.

Contact:  Jim Edgerton, OrCAD, 3175 NW Aloclek Drive, Hillsboro, OR 
97124-7135.  (503) 690-9881.


CYCLE BINDING SHOE/PEDAL SYSTEM
Grade:  A-

I wish these people hadn't gone out of business.  Breaking into the 
bicycling market is extremely difficult -- it's style-driven and 
dominated by a few major vendors.  Some excellent products appear 
and then quietly die, while some true junk gathers dust on the 
shelves for years.

Cycle Binding is in the first category.  This shoe system is based on a 
successful ski binding design, and is particularly attractive for 
recumbent riders because the foot can float about 15 degrees around 
the set angle.  On a normal bicycle, this isn't necessary -- a skinny 
seat is rammed up your, er, centerline to keep you aligned precisely 
with the bike.  But a recumbent seat is wide and comfortable, 
meaning that you can incur a few degrees of error in the foot-pedal 
relationship... potentially causing knee problems with traditional 
cleats.

The shoes velcro on, and locking/unlocking to the pedal is so easy 
and smooth that I've never fallen over in the process (my major fear 
when first trying them).  Since the cleat is female, walking is 
comfortable.  And a subtle security benefit results from the difficulty 
of riding the bike without the proper shoes.

I hear the new Shimanos are excellent, and when these eventually 
wear out I'll look into them.  But for now, Cycle Binding, though no 
longer available, still gets my vote.


POQET PC
Grade:  B

This little palmtop computer is an amazing machine -- full DOS 
system in a tiny package.  It has an acceptable keyboard, which 
places it well above the Atari Portfolio and others as a writing tool.

The big problem is the built-in editor, which is worthless.  It word-
wraps, of course... but if you want to go up a few lines and add some 
words it does not compensate -- nor have I found any way to force a 
reformat (someone please tell me if there is one).  The general 
software environment is fine and the other tools are OK... and slow 
speed is certainly no problem when the payoff is 40 or so hours of 
life on a couple of AA batteries.  The screen is even 24x80.  

My only other complaint is the little RAM card covers on the back, 
which only stay on if there's a RAM or application card installed.  
Sticking duct tape on a exquisite packaging job like the Poquet rubs 
me the wrong way.


SOLAR SHOWER
Grade:  A

Absolutely essential for cycle camping.  They work, and make 
romantic evenings around the fire considerably more pleasant.

Contact:  REI or any good outdoor store.


MAKITA POWER TOOLS
Grade:  A+

Here's another winner.  After years of buying and then discarding 
consumer-grade Black & Decker and Craftsman electric drills (always 
suffering with them for a few years after the beginning of bearing or 
chuck failure until, in a fit of pique, I would be driven to buy another 
clunker), I broke down and got a good one.  The 9.6-volt series of 
familar blue-green tools from Makita are magnificent machines, and 
the bike carries both a reversible, 2-speed, 3/8" drill and the 
flashlight -- as well as a charger designed for 12-volt power systems.  
The flashlight, with spot and flood modes as well as a red rhodopsin-
saving filter, is the most robust I've ever used (though it doesn't 
replace the infinitely convenient Mini-Maglite in my pack).  If you 
buy these tools, make sure you have 2 or more batteries so you don't 
have to twiddle your thumbs for an hour halfway through a hole.

Contact:  any good tool vendor, or mail-order at full price from Real 
Goods in Ukiah, CA. (800) 762-7325.


THERMA-REST MATTRESSES
Grade:  C-

I'm going to give these people a hard time.  I still think it's the best 
camping mattress on the market, but I just bought a new long one to 
replace my old standard, and it came with two leaks.  What's even 
more irritating is that they no longer provide the essential bag that 
everyone needs for packing, so you have to fork out another $7 for 
that.  Bad policy, destined to irritate every customer.

Yeah, they're still great products.  One tip -- in an emergency, you 
can make a "couple kit" with three strips of 3M adhesive-backed 
velcro (loop) on each mattress and corresponding strips of "hook."  
Just let the stuff stick for about 24 hours before getting too 
rambunctious.  And if you don't have the official patch kit, barge 
cement works (though it's not very pretty).

Contact your camp supply store.


EUREKA! EQUINOX 6 TENT
Grade:  A+

This is amazing.  When I was tent shopping for this new system, I 
stated the tough requirement that my new shelter be freestanding, 
yet big enough to accommodate bike and trailer.  Given that the 
machine is about 13 feet long, this is a non-trivial issue.  Most tents 
big enough to house the bike weighed between 30 and 50 pounds 
and required stakes.

The new Equinox series from Eureka includes three free-standing 
domes of different sizes, and this is the largest.  At only about 20 
pounds, it has an amazing function-to-weight ratio.  It's tough, too:  
on that fateful RAGBRAI eve, there was a huge storm, and a good 
many of the tents around me were sagging and soaked by morning.  
Not the Eureka.  This is a far cry from their old A-frame models -- 
it's tight, easy to assemble (with clips, not sleeves!), and has excellent 
ventilation and visibility.  There's also a vestibule (which does 
require staking), precut groundcloth, and gear loft.

To park the bike, incidentally, I drop the trailer, roll it inside, then 
jockey it into position along the back wall.  I then bring the trailer in 
at about 90 degrees to the bike and reattach it.  All my stuff is now 
in easy reach; the solar trailer lid makes a good worksurface; I feel 
secure with the hardware out of sight of passers-by.  It's a 
surprisingly comfy house.

This is an excellent tent, new this year, and I suspect the others in 
the series are just as good.. 

Contact:  Eureka Tents (800) 847-1460


SPRINT
Grade:  D

You know, I've always liked the idea of competing long-distance 
telephone services, and rarely have any reason to complain about the 
performance of my Sprint account (except when I'm on those awful 
midwest GTE phones with the nasty buttons that lock out additional 
touch-tones after the access code, forcing you to use either your Casio 
DTMF watch or their operators... but that's not Sprint's fault).

What IS Sprint's fault is their policy on security.  During the long 
stint in the bikelab, I almost never used my travel card.  When I hit 
the road, I began using it full time (about $350 a month worth).  This 
apparently triggered their computer model of stolen card behavior, 
and my account was summarily disabled without warning -- while I 
was in Newburg, WI at a hostel trying to coordinate the arrival of a 
film crew from Japan, via Los Angeles, into Milwaukee.  I had no 
other method of making calls.

When I contacted Sprint they informed me that this was policy.  Why 
did they not try to get in touch with me first?  Policy.  How long 
would it take to get the account back on?  Oh, 8 hours or so.  By 
screaming at the right people I managed it in 2 hours, but the lesson 
stuck:  don't take Sprint on the road without a backup AT&T calling 
card or MCI account.

Incidentally, all these services have a hidden charge (even AT&T, 
which barely admits it).  There is a PER CALL surcharge of 50-70 
cents anytime you use an access number and your card account, even 
though the actual connect time is billed at about the same rate as a 
call from home.  Beware.


HELMET COOLING SYSTEM
Grade:  A+

Ahhh, yes.  This is another of those rather bizarre components in 
BEHEMOTH, but it proved itself admirably.  My helmet liner is a 
black cap containing a fabric heat exchanger made by Life Support 
Systems, with an insulating sleeve down the nape of my neck that 
carries two plastic tubes.  These plug into fittings on the top of my 
seat, which are connected to a water tank (about 2 gallons) via a 
small hand-crank pump.  A Y-fitting on the high-pressure side feeds 
a bite valve stowed in a holster beside the seat.

All this except for the helmet liner was provided by Carlson 
Technology in Detroit, which does similar things for race-car drivers, 
people with certain medical problems, firefighters, and others who 
need to keep cool in hot environments.  

Lemme tellya:  it works.  On 100-degree days in the midwest sun, I 
could pedal uphill in a mass of dead, humid air and be comfortable.  
Every morning, I'd buy a 99-cent bag of crushed ice from a 
convenience store and pour it into the tank, then fill most of the way 
with water.  Anytime thereafter, I could pull about 75 watts out of 
my head by simply turning the little crank (a peristaltic pump) -- or 
drink by biting the rubber valve while doing likewise.  Head cooling 
not only aided comfort immeasurably, it reduced my dependence 
upon fluid-evaporative cooling, thus lowering my drinking needs.  
Water warmed by the heat exchanger simply returns to the tank.

This is the first time in my touring career I have ever felt adequately 
hydrated on a long day's ride, and being able to turn on the hair 
conditioner anytime I like goes a long way toward improving the 
attitude... not to mention physical performance.  I highly recommend 
this for any serious tourer -- and a system using ice cartridges and a 
small electric pump is available for racers.

Contact:  Stan or Gary at Life Support Systems (415) 962-9800
          Dennis at Carlson Technology (313) 476-0013


RADIO SHACK / MAXON 49-MHz INTERCOM
Grade:  F

Well, maybe I shouldn't be so harsh.  But when Susan joined me, we 
had to have something to communicate.  Since she's not a ham (yet) 
we went to the local Radio Shack and bought a pair of wireless 
intercoms using the ear-microphone.  They're either VOX or push-to-
talk, and seemed like a pretty good idea at the time.  

The audio quality is actually quite good, considering the mic 
placement.  But effective range, well... let me put it this way:  if 
you're close enough to shout at each other, these will work.  If you're 
just barely outside that range, these will allow just enough 
communication to make you say "what?"  And if you're significantly 
outside shouting range, these won't help.  Besides, battery life on 9V 
alkalines is only about 2 days.

Added to that is the nature of 49 MHz band allocation.  Riding 
through Wisconsin towns, I listened in on baby monitors and cordless 
phones (quite unwillingly, since I really wanted to chat with my 
companion, not listen to peoples' TV sets and crying kids).  Many 
power lines also generate heavy trash that keeps the squelch open.  
In short, it's doubtless useful under some specific circumstances, but 
this product is not for bicycle touring.

Contact:  your local emporium of cheap electronic stuff.


That's more than enough for now -- we're over 30K!  Time to cause a 
micro-hiccup in global information flow as this bolus of text is loosed 
upon a massive alias......

Cheers!
   Steven K. Roberts

1809.23I just HAD to know!RANGER::WASSERJohn A. WasserThu Oct 31 1991 20:105
> I hasten to add that this gas-guzzling monster (about 1.7 light years 
> per cubic mile of gasoline) 

	In case anyone is interested, that translates to about 9.1MPG
1809.24JitenshaSHALOT::ELLISJohn Lee Ellis - assembly requiredFri Nov 01 1991 12:276
    
    FYI - "jitensha" means "bicycle"  
    
    (Don't know off-hand what jidoosha means.)
    
    -j
1809.25ULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindTue Dec 31 1991 17:42487
--------------------------- 
NOTES FROM THE BIKELAB 
Issue #14 -- 12/31/91
by Steven K. Roberts
---------------------------

Copyright (C) 1991 by Steven K. Roberts.  All Rights Reserved.
(Intact reposting and free distribution is OK with permission; 
personal forwarding is OK without.)


IN THIS ISSUE:
	Post-Nomadic Stress Disorder... and Quest for Humans
	San Diego and Seattle travel in Jan-Feb
	Bike status:  SPARC update and crosspoint switches


"The difference between art and work is that work has a deadline."
						-- Dave Berkstresser



Post-Nomadic Stress Disorder... and Quest for Humans
-------------------------------------------------------

Damn, I hadn't anticipated this... but I should have.  Working
obsessively for a few years on BEHEMOTH and then abruptly relocating it
to the shores of Lake Michigan for a shared adventure of technoid
romance with a winsome friend, I set the stage for what one might, in
another context, call anticlimax.  In the two months since returning to
Silicon Valley and issuing Bikelab Report #13, life has been a potent
reminder of all that I DON'T want life to be:  stress, overload,
deadlines, lack of adventure, and a pervasive sense of panic at the
impossible complexity of this project.  Even with help from a number of
friends and the powerful urge to GET ON WITH IT, there is an almost
helpless sense of dealing with something too big for one person to
manage.  It's not just the bike:  I have a mother ship to prepare, two
article deadlines, a speaking business to launch, books to write,
relationships to build... madness, all of it.  Yet, when I consider the
alternatives... maybe it's not so bad after all.  Technically, I
suppose I'm homeless and unemployed -- but I've never been so busy (or
had so much fun) in my life!

You know, all I really wanted, that innocent day in the Spring of 1983 
when this idea first struck me, was to escape Ohio suburbia and hit 
the road for a grand adventure.  It was an adventure alright, more 
than I had ever dared imagine, but somewhere during 17,000 miles 
of pedaling and twice that in other vehicles it turned into a mini-
industry (however nomadic and eccentric it may be).  In an ironic 
twist, I'm now more stressed than I would ever have become had I 
chosen a life of honest work. 

All of which has something to do with this article.  I've issued 
various calls for help to the net before, always finding interesting 
people popping into my mailbox for weeks thereafter.  I already get 
too much email, but the network is my lifeline (do I complain about 
getting too much oxygen?  Too much food?  Too many ideas?).  
Recently, I posted a short form of a "nomadic partner wanted" ad to 
misc.jobs.offered, sparking a flame war with the kind of nonstandard 
prose you might expect in a case like this -- rhapsodizing about 
sharing a life fueled by passion, looking for someone attractive 
enough for a media-intensive lifestyle, strong enough to pedal a 
heavily loaded bicycle, and so on.  This yielded a number of flames 
couched in equal employment opportunity jargon, not to mention 
moral outrage at the obvious blend of work and play that seems, in 
this post-Thomas/Hill era, somehow incorrect to self-appointed 
arbiters of public morality (the net.police).  Fortunately, the majority 
of posters in the skirmish were in strong support of this venture, 
pointing out not only the irrelevance of strict EEO law in a non-
employment partnership but also the genuine appropriateness of the 
requirements.  This is not exactly a normal gig, appearance and 
strength DO matter, and the whole thing is half personal anyway.

So before giving you the update on bike tech and related matters, I 
want to continue this quest and also launch a few others.  Nomadic 
Research Labs is looking for help -- not only full-time on-the-road 
companion(s) but also with specific hardware, software, and 
construction projects.

First, the nomads.  I've had the dream over the years of putting 
together a nomadic community, a tribe of network-linked freelancers 
who move freely in physical space as whim, weather, and clients 
dictate.  If this seems risky in these economically troubled times, 
remember that your real security is not what's in your bank account, 
but what's in your head.  Skills are highly portable, and many of 
them can be wielded entirely via networks, phones, fax, pagers, 
satellites, and so on.  If you are a wizard in some field, you will be 
welcome anywhere -- yet you can maintain the illusion of stability 
via methods that are now very familiar.

I originally assumed we'd all be on bicycles, but that's an 
unreasonable constraint.  My current image is much more general:  a 
group of varying size, sharing certain basic resources (home base 
site, gateways and file servers, lab tools, and so on).  The default 
mode is travel, but there's no expectation that we'd always be in a 
group (with one exception, to be noted in a moment).  

Technology has developed enough in the last few years that this idea, 
once rather fanciful, is now quite realistic.  Virtually any 
information-based business can be operated from the road -- there's 
a "bicycle" over there behind me snarled in a mad tangle of umbilici, 
and when next it rolls it will carry a 16 megabyte color SPARCstation 
with a half-gig of disk, Macintosh permanently active as a GUI, 
mapping system driven by GPS satnav, DOS machine with helmet-
mounted display, ham station, cellular phone with high-speed 
modem and fax, speech I/O, audio network, and much more -- all 
weatherproof and running on solar power.  Given all that on a bicycle 
(however extreme), it is clearly possible to scale it down to 
something reasonable and provide people with tools robust enough 
to do business on the road while remaining connected.  Think of 
BEHEMOTH not as a lifestyle prototype (it's WAY too heavy and 
complex), but as a caricature of nomadic system integration... 
something that is increasingly important to the business community 
at large.  The keynote address at COMDEX this year pointed to "field 
computing" as the next major trend, and it seems that all system 
vendors are trying to carve out some spectrum and get in bed with 
the RF wizards... it all points to one thing:  getting away from your 
desk without simultaneously disappearing from Dataspace.

(By the way, there's a great newsletter devoted to field computing,
international telephone systems, fax, paging, and mobile data issues.  
It's the Teleputin Hotline -- contact them at 404-373-7634, fax 378-0794, 
GEnie: nb.atl, MCI: 409-8960, or CIS: 76200,3025.  It's delivered
electronically.)

I have come to believe that with the right organization and system 
administration, a vaporous community of arbitrary size can share the 
resources and overhead that make networked nomadic freelancing effective 
for everyone involved.  If you see yourself fitting into this, let me 
know.  A few specific roles and business ideas include:

-> Productizing spinoffs from BEHEMOTH and other work.
-> Writing, photography, art, and other creative efforts.
-> Home base management for the whole enterprise.
-> Speaking, consulting, training, and related professional gigs.
-> Maintenance and system administration for the group.

There are so many angles here that it's dizzying.  I don't want to RUN 
this, but I'll sure help make it go if a critical mass of interesting 
people manifest themselves.  And while I'm at it, I'm looking for a 
home base, ASAP.  Let me know if you have room for mother ship 
parking and a permanent lab setup.  Somewhere within a few 
hundred miles of Silicon Valley is preferred, but I'm open to other 
possibilities.

Now for that exception, noted earlier.  I need a full-time assistant on 
the road to insulate me somewhat from the realities of the world, 
help at trade shows and speaking gigs, work with me on all projects, 
do correspondence, share the adventure, assist with the extensive 
logistics and overhead of travel, manage planning, share driving, run 
the mother ship operation when I'm on the bike or doing a gig 
marathon, etc.  This is a special, close, complex relationship, and 
involves too much detail and too many issues for further discussion 
here.  But if you are interested in a complete lifestyle change coupled 
with a bizarre panoply of experiences and professional connections, 
send me email -- and soon.  There are a couple of good prospects 
already, and time is short.

I mentioned at the start of this article that there are also some 
projects I need help with.  This whole undertaking has been possible 
largely because of the 45 or so people who, over the years, have 
donated their personal time to helping with various bike tasks.  Since 
my return from the midwest, Dan Pritchett, Bob Gahl, Joe Dunn, and 
Michael Grant (all of Sun Microsystems) have put in significant time, 
with David (Zonker) Harris, Mike Perry, and Steve Sergeant 
participating heavily as well.  Thanks!

There's a lot more to do in the next 12 weeks, and I can't resist 
listing a few specific tasks to see if I get any nibbles here.  At this 
late hour, I'm not looking for general "I can help with software" 
responses -- just specifics:

->  Writing and testing a special serial xcmd that links HyperTalk on 
the Mac to the New Micros FORTH boards (a bit of handshaking for 
downloads) and provides a clean development environment (easy access
to DA editor, find line number from error trap, etc.).

->  Welding a hinged steel secure box to go between the van seats in 
the mother ship.  I need a place to keep the remote bike console, 
ham equipment, CD, and other stuff while in petroleum mode.

->  Building cabinetry for the trailer -- work surfaces, storage areas, 
and so on for the mobile bikelab.  This is urgent, and is a project 
large enough to cost me real $ or barter... know any hungry 
cabinetmakers in Silicon Valley?

->  SPARC-to-Mac uucp link, via RS-232 since there's no small 
ethernet board for the Mac Portable (hoping for upgrade to 
PowerBook 170 board, but can't plan on that yet), and since an 
AppleTalk SBUS card takes up a slot I can't spare in the SPARC 1+ 
board (color LCD controller takes two; VideoPix frame grabber wants 
one).

->  Full analysis of HF antenna system to determine need for balun, 
RF choke, or different length of feedline (funny SWR under some 
conditions).

->  Testing and integration of mapping software and CDROM.

->  Construction and test of low-noise active volume & tone control 
board for main power amps.

->  Mechanical fine-tuning of disk brake system

->  Design and assembly of surge brake system on trailer, using 
Magura hydraulics.  Hitch design left room for this.

->  On-site EXPERIENCED tech help for a variety of small hardware 
projects, cabling, board stuffing, debugging, and so on.

->  Solar power system and local battery manager for mother ship.

->  Construction of a few little regulator boards using Power Trends 
switcher parts and FETs.

->  At the risk of being too general:  etcetera!

There's little or no money in this, but there are many other benefits, 
including fun, learning curves, making contacts among the 
community of amazing people who have become involved here, and 
doing something technical because it's interesting -- not because it's 
your job.  Remember <sigh> the hobbyist era?  It's still alive in the 
bikelab, running on strong tea, friendship, and obtanium!



San Diego and Seattle travel in Jan-Feb
--------------------------------------

Some time ago I promised you that I'd announce public appearances 
and firm travel plans here.  There are many people on the net that 
I'd like to meet, and I can't always be counted on to track everyone 
down when I'm passing through an area.  Now that I'm officially 
(whatever that means) going on a speaking tour with BEHEMOTH, I'm 
very much in the mood for scheduling talks with user groups, on 
campuses, or at companies.  Or wherever.  My speakers bureau 
(Keynote Speakers in Palo Alto) handles the formal, big-league kinds 
of gigs, but nothing prevents me from arranging events on the side... 
and I'm often in the mood for a party and/or a place to stay when 
visiting an otherwise unfamiliar city.

Here's the schedule of known events during the next two months:

On January 10, I head to Los Angeles in the mother ship to visit my 
base office in El Segundo enroute to San Diego.  Time will probably 
not permit additional LA visits during that weekend.  I then arrive in 
San Diego Sunday, do a day of local media Monday, and display the 
bike for two days at the San Diego Electronics Show on Jan 14-15.  
(it's at the San Diego Convention Center -- contact show management 
at 619-284-9268 for details).  I then plan to spend the next two days 
visiting Qualcomm and RDI, and possibly other companies.  This, as 
well as the weekend, is currently unscheduled, and I'm open to 
suggestions (including the beach!).  I expect to head back to Silicon 
Valley on Monday.

A month later, I hit the road again -- this time north to Seattle.  With 
a stop in Portland and Vancouver along the way to see OrCAD, Sharp, 
Larsen, and others, I'll arrive in Seattle on February 22.  Other than 
informal visits to Traveling Software and Icom, the first three days 
of the week following (Feb 24-26) are unscheduled; after that is an 
appearance at the Seattle Bike Expo Friday and Saturday (contact 
Dave Shaw at 206-882-0706 for details).  Sunday is an all-day ride 
around Bainbridge Island, then I'll probably head back south on 
Monday.

Finally, I think I'm showing BEHEMOTH at Idea '92 in San Jose on 
April 14-16, but I don't know further details.  I expect to leave 
directly from there and hit the Dayton Hamfest, then kill a few 
weeks (like, maybe, actually RIDE the bike???  what a concept...) 
enroute to Interop Spring in DC.  Plans here are vague...

I hope to meet lots of interesting denizens of Dataspace while out 
prowling physical space!


Bike status:  SPARC update and crosspoint switches
-----------------------------------------------------

Oh yes.  These bikelab reports are ostensibly about the bike project, 
aren't they?  If that's all you were looking for when you got on the 
internet alias, wandered into NOMAD on GEnie, or downloaded this 
from any of the various archive sites -- sorry about that.  Turns out, 
in practice, that despite all the technology on BEHEMOTH the real 
issues persist in being human ones, and that can distract me terribly 
from programmable gate arrays and hydraulic braking systems.  But 
while much of my bandwidth since returning from the midwest has 
been soaked up in biz, there has been some very interesting progress 
on the monster itself.  

First, the long-discussed crosspoint switch matrices have come 
online, at least in the console.  The design of this was discussed in 
detail in issue #7 of these reports, so I won't repeat it, but there are 
some updates.

First, the serial system.  I posted a request for help on sci.electronics, 
mentioning that I wanted to take a variety of RS-232 devices and 
link them all through a Mitel 8816 chip powered by +5 and -5 volts.  
This requires me to constrain the swing of the transmit lines within 
that range, and I needed an easy way to do that.

Fascinating thing about posting anything to usenet.  The range of 
opinions out there is staggering -- from a variety of conflicting but 
well-informed suggestions to total lunacy.  I was advised to use 
zeners, dividers, individual drivers, TTL levels, RS-422, RS-423, RS-
449, op-amps, diodes to Vdd and Vss, a dedicated micro, hacked 
drivers on every subsystem, optical fiber, and ethernet.  After 
staring at all this for a while, I took Dave Wright's suggestion and 
used a 3K series resistor on each transmit line, feeding the network 
via a pair of back-to-back 3.6-volt zeners to ground.  This constrains 
the swing within the supply range and still delivers the required 
current through worst-case 160 ohm network resistance to the RS-
232 receivers without dramatically raising supply current at the 
transmitters.  What a pain... but it works.  (Before flaming, remember
that issues include dealing with a wide variety of existing systems
that aren't necessarily all turned on at once, not to mention the
power problems of adding true network overhead.)

Supply, incidentally, is a Maxim MAX-660, which takes the 5V from 
the bicycle control processor's backplane (in turn, from a Power 
Trends switcher off main bike bus) and inverts it to -5 using a couple 
of 150 uF electrolytics.  Much easier to use than the ones that require 
inductor-hacking... though it is currently getting loaded to -4.53 at 
only 62 mA so there's another puzzle to solve.

Initial testing in FORTH got the serial crosspoint running fine -- 
there's now one local path in each site and three "longlines" paths, 
any of which may simultaneously carry traffic between any 
combination of 16 serial devices in the console and 8 each in RUMP 
and trailer.  The FORTH code, largely created by Mike Perry, 
responds to a request such as "SPEECH MAC LINK" by finding and 
acquiring the first available pair, updating an array reflecting the 
status of all crosspoints, and turning on the appropriate FETs in the 
8816 chips.  At that point, the Macintosh and Audapter synthesizer 
are connected as cleanly as if you had just plugged a serial cable 
between them.

Audio networking is architecturally much the same, but is 
complicated by one annoying characteristic of audio:  it's analog.  This 
means we suddenly care about distortion, noise, and crosstalk, and 
has resulted in three custom printed circuit boards stuffed with 8 
TL074 quad op-amps each, as well as a pair of 8816s and a couple 
hundred discretes.  (Credits:  Steve Sergeant did analog design, Bob 
Lockhart did CAD work, Mesa Reprographics did films, Sun Circuits 
did boards, Joe Dunn stuffed them, and I bolted 'em down and 
started testing.)  Yes, next generation I'll go with codecs and
all-digital networking -- I've learned!

But these work amazingly well, and Steve determined with the Amber 
noise and distortion analyzer that trash is at -80 db, crosstalk worst 
case at about -50 db.  This is clean enough for acceptable road use of 
the stereo while also handling speech, ham radio, cellular phone, and 
modem tones -- we just have a few little problems to take care of.  
Like the noise generated from operation of the Sony CD player... 
turns out that its power "ground" and audio "ground" are different 
things entirely, and work fine on floating (battery) supply but poorly 
when integrated <sigh>.  We'll try AC coupling... or maybe just switch 
players (I want one that's more robust anyway).

Details, endless details.  Other than that, the audio crosspoint is way
cool, and the host (Hypertalk eventually; at the moment Bill Muench's
BHOST on a PC) can connect anything to anything by issuing simple
textual commands to FORTH (CD-LEFT AMP-LEFT CONNECT), whereupon Mike
Perry's code manages the matrix and assigns buses.  (This extends to
the mother ship with a simple Y cable at the trailer hitch, by the
way.)  It turns out that mixing works well -- a plus, since a lot of
low-priority occasional audio sources like computer speakers and
warning beeps can all be dumped into one bus and piped to a small
speaker, and synthesized status updates can interrupt music gracefully
without having to own the channel and startle me from an adagio-induced
reverie.

A single bus cannot cleanly feed multiple output stages, though, 
which might make phone patches and the like difficult.  Problem is in 
the nature of the op-amps:  there is an "input noise" that's normally 
nullified by their essential op-ampness, but connecting two inputs 
together lets them amplify each other until the resulting hiss is very 
significant.  There are all sorts of strange surprises like this in the 
analog world, which is why analog engineers will always be able to 
find work.  As for me, I just want to get this all done so I can 
view the world digitally, the way it was ~meant~ to be!    ;-)

Speaking of things digital, there has been a tremendous amount of work
lately on the wide-area networking tools -- most notably, the
SPARCstation.  After much deliberation, I've decided to remove the
console's 286 DOS machine, excise the VGA display, and replace them
with the SPARC and a Sharp 10.4-inch active-matrix color LCD (the DOS
system, a rugged Ampro Little Board 286, will go into the mother ship
as a CAD workstation -- and the SPARC can emulate DOS for Windows
applications and OrCAD).

One of the color LCDs is running on a machine here at Sun, and it's
seriously beautiful.  I'm trying to get a couple of Conner's new
212-Megabyte 1" high drives (identical package to the pair of 40's in
there now), and, well, if all goes as planned we'll have a compute
engine on board that can blaze through 624,000 instructions for the
passage of each rear-wheel spoke at my normal cruising speed of 9 mph.
Or, you can think of it as 6.4 billion instructions per mile -- and
that's just this one machine.  Crank up the Mac (hopefully becoming a
PowerBook 170 board instead of the current Portable), the other Ampro
PC behind the seat, all the FORTH boards and PICs and about 35 embedded
processors in products and... and the numbers become so thoroughly
ridiculous that it makes the head swim.  How many transistors, I
wonder?

Phew.  Where was I?  Ah -- the SPARC.  Anyway, what we're trying 
to do, once this is physically installed, is set up the right handlebar 
keyboard (based on the Infogrip BAT) with three simultaneous 
interfaces to Mac, SPARC, and DOS machines, steering them via 
commands from the chord keyboard on my left hand to the BCP.  The 
data stream can be piped through the Ampro if I want to run the 
PRD+ macro software, appearing to Mac or SPARC as a super-fast 
typist coming in through hacked keyboard drivers.  This all gets very 
convoluted, but should make sense in practice.

Mail continues to be one of the main applications for all this (hardly
justifying a color screen, of course -- that will pay for its amperes
when I'm doing maps, CAD, and video frame-grabbing).  We've been
puzzling over the best approach for months and this is still not cast
in concrete, but the way it looks now is that the SPARC will wake up
once or twice a day, request the CellBlazer via the serial crosspoint
system, and have the BCP fire up that, the Celjack, and the cellular
phone.  It will then make a call to my home-base workstation at
nomad.com, responsible for deciding which pieces of mail get held for
the uucp call and which get piped immediately to the bike via the
Qualcomm satellite terminal.  Once that mail transfer is done, the bike
will call MCI and GEnie, inhaling the day's mail and rewriting headers
to make it all look like internet traffic in the same mail spool
environment.

At that point, Michael Grant's custom sendmail hack will somehow notify 
the Mac (via a flag in the BCP, probably) that mail is waiting, 
whereupon the BCP will shut down the cellular link and establish a 
local uucp connection between SPARC and Mac (RS-232 for this -- I 
still haven't found an easy way to do ethernet or AppleTalk between 
the SPARC and the Mac Portable since ethernet requires a clunky 
SCSI interface on the Mac and AppleTalk eats an SBUS slot on the 
SPARC.... selecting a component gruppo for a modern bicycle just isn't 
as easy as it used to be....).  At this point, the SPARC acts like a mail 
server to Eudora in the Mac, who inhales all the recent traffic and 
presents it in a single mail tool that also, through a different path, 
acquires satellite traffic.  Presumably, this will all get properly sorted 
upon reply so that outgoing messages get queued for their 
appropriate destinations -- via internet gateways in the case of MCI, 
GEnie, CIS, and anything reachable directly or via Dasnet.  Multiple
mail accounts will exist on the SPARC to accommodate other travelers,
other moods.

Ah, connectivity.  It wasn't so many miles ago that I was very 
pleased to slip a Radio Shack acoustic coupler onto a pay phone and log 
on from a campground at 300 baud with my trusty 32K Model 100....  
Now I hear that many pay phones in Tokyo have ISDN jacks on them:  
you can download your favorite font to make catching up on email as 
aesthetically pleasing as possible, while including voicemail or image 
attachments on your letters!

There's a lot more going on here -- countless little parallel projects 
getting nudged along incrementally.  As I write, Dave Harris is over 
there working on serial interface and power control for the Trimble 
GPS receiver, which should be a major source of fun in the near term 
and a key link in security and mapping systems a few months from 
now.  I'm getting bids on mother-ship cabinetry, and making lists 
that attempt to reduce this entire mobile bikelab project to the level 
of CDT's (clearly-defined tasks).  And time passes inexorably -- something 
I can't help but notice as I spend yet another New Year's Eve in a 
strange place, hacking away madly in the name of adventure...

Happy New Year!

	Steven K. Roberts
	Nomadic Research Labs



NOTE:  If you want more information, all back issues of this series (as
well as about a megabyte of road stories from the previous trip) are
available for free downloading from ftp.telebit.com under /pub/nomad/.
The text is also on GEnie in the NOMAD area, and the bikelab reports
(but not the stories) are on CompuServe in HAMNET.  

I also have a quarterly print publication called Nomadness -- subscriptions
are $15 for 6 issues (or $21 for first class mail).  The book about
the first trip, _Computing_Across_America_, is $11.95 (in all cases,
CA residents must add a larcenous 8.25% tax).  The ordering address
is Nomadic Research Labs, P.O. Box 2185, El Segundo, CA 90245.

     -SKR
1809.26a new alias for technomadsULTRA::WITTENBERGUphill, Into the WindThu Jan 02 1992 15:1754
Subj:	A new alias for technomads....


Hello again...

   The volume of mail I've received that expresses interest in shared
adventure and nomadic community has suggested something I should have
thought of months ago.  (Sometimes, even with the technology right under
my nose, it takes me a while to catch on...)

   I've just created a new alias:  technomads@bikelab.sun.com

   Unlike the nomadness alias that you are already on, this one can
propagate postings by anyone.  (The existing nomadness list is defined
specifically as a path for distribution of bikelab reports, keeping
volume low to avoid becoming a nuisance to people who just want the
technical updates and stories.  I locally trap incoming mail to
"nomadness" from going any further than my workstation.)  The idea of
the new alias, however, is to eliminate the bottleneck named Steve
Roberts that keeps people with similar nomadic interests from meeting
each other.  In the past, I've received all sorts of mail from
interesting people, but only rarely followed through by introducing
them to others of similar spirit.

   This new alias will deal with all relevant issues related to
full-time high-tech nomadness, including networking, email, ham radio,
forming mobile communities, business ideas, freelance opportunities,
security, hospitality, local resources for travelers, and so on (not
limited to travel via bicycles).  My intent is to get a community going
online, seeded by people who are already very literate in these kinds
of issues and who are currently -- or soon will be -- traveling and
living on the networks.  (The bikelab reports will continue to be
posted only to the present list, so you can ignore this without any
effect if you don't want the additional material.)

   IF you are interested in becoming actively involved in a nomadic
lifestyle, working on the road, decoupling from the desk, living in
Dataspace, traveling with me, or meeting other people who are seriously
restless, please let me know with a very brief note addressed to
technomads-request@bikelab.sun.com (subject line only is fine -- you
can introduce yourself to the whole alias later, after you're on the
list).  I'll periodically post updates and ideas, but for me this is
more a medium for exchanging ideas and watching other people
communicate than for publishing more of my own stuff.  All mail to the
group should be addressed to technomads@bikelab.sun.com and will be
reflected to everyone else without my direct involvement.  Ain't
technology wonderful?

   Cheers, and I hope this becomes an active and stimulating list!  If
it goes well, maybe it will grow into a newgroup someday...

    Steve Roberts
    Nomadic Research Labs

1809.27BEHEMOTH in Seattle 28,29 Feb 1992DECWET::BINGHAMJohn BinghamWed Feb 05 1992 15:3316
    From the "Cascade Bicycle Club Newsletter", February 1992:
    
    "Steve Roberts will be our special star attraction. [at the 1992
    Greater Seattle Bicycle Expo]  Steve is a bicycling and computer wizard
    who captivates audiences with his office on wheels.  His BEHEMOTH (Big
    Ugly Human Energized Machine.. Only Too Heavy) has 105 speeds, 82 watts
    of solar panels, a satellite earth station, cellular phone with modem
    and fax, handlebar keyoard syustem, head and thumb cursor pointing
    device, a complete ham station, satellite navigation, computer
    generated maps, a PC and Mac, a 6 level security system, 30-40
    microprocessors and much, much more.  Plan on being dazzled by all of
    the high tech innovation he has rigged up to his bike.  You won't want
    to miss him.  Many suprises planned, too."
    
    1992 Greater Seattle Bicycle Expo is February 28, 29 at the Seattle
    Center's Flag Pavilion
1809.28When did Ugly start with 'E'?DEBUG::SCHULDTAs Incorrect as they come...Wed Feb 05 1992 16:161
    BEHEMOTH = Big UGLY??? Human Energized Machine Only Too Heavy?
1809.29nahh, too logicalNOVA::FISHERRdb/VMS DinosaurWed Feb 05 1992 17:161
    BUHEMOTH?
1809.30SHALOT::ELLISJohn Lee Ellis - assembly requiredWed Feb 05 1992 19:0216
    
    Ok, I couldn't resist just looking back and seeing what it *did*
    stand for:
    
    Note 1809.0                  Notes from the Bikelab                  
    29 replies
    ULTRA::WITTENBERG "Uphill, Into the Wind"           342 lines 
    23-DEC-1990 14:48
    
    BRIEF Overview of the BEHEMOTH Project
    --------------------------------------
    
            I had great dreams of starting this series with a complete
            description of the new bike system, now renamed from Winnebiko
            to BEHEMOTH (Big Electronic Human-Energized Machine... Only Too
            Heavy).
1809.31[sic] re .28 about .27DECWET::BINGHAMJohn BinghamThu Feb 06 1992 03:181
    Ok, I did not verify the explanation in the newsletter,  sheesh.
1809.32Notes from the Bikelab -- Issue #15DANGER::JBELLZeno was almost hereTue Mar 31 1992 14:38452
- --------------------------- 
NOTES FROM THE BIKELAB 
Issue #15 -- 3/29/92
by Steven K. Roberts
- ---------------------------

Copyright (C) 1992 by Steven K. Roberts.  All Rights Reserved.
(Intact reposting and free distribution is OK with permission; 
personal forwarding is OK without.)


IN THIS ISSUE:
	High-tech Nomadness Returns!
		The Mother of All Layovers
		The Mothership
	BEHEMOTH Technical Update
		CELLULAR PHONE
		HAM STATION
		PNEUMATICS
		FORTH DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM and MAC STATUS
		UNIXCYCLE
		HP-95LX PALMTOP


"I'd rather be lucky than talented.  Luck doesn't take any work."
	-- Dave Berkstresser, who never fails to come up
	   with a quotable line in the middle of a pizza.



I keep getting glimpses of it:  sometimes in the images called forth by
the music of my life, flashes of the Road encoded in the CDs of my
favorite travelin' jams.  Sometimes the reminders lurk in the
smoldering eyes of a new friend, recalling the romance of beginnings,
the magic of new places.  If I'm sensitive, it takes but a sunny day
and a passing bicycle; if I'm stressed, I have to get hit on the head
by the poignancy of old writings or the intensity of new passions
before I remember why I am.  But always, somewhere below the surface,
is the wanderlust -- the ache for freedom.  Strip away all the high
tech and business clutter, and you'll find me deep in love, still, with
the Other Woman... The Road.  She's easy to take for granted, yet so
potent in her effects that handling a tattered old road map can bring
tears to my eyes.

It's happening again at last.  Friends have watched patiently for three
and a half years, some helping with the project, others just asking in
that quiet way if I'm ever going to travel again -- their voices taking
on the sort of tenderness associated with hesitant questions about
relationships in transition.  This whole Silicon Valley "layover,"
nearly as long as my internment in Ohio suburbia, seems to have been
one great inhalation:  now, blue-faced, I strain toward the moment of
release in a sort of eager panic.  On April 15, I shut the door of the
Sun bikelab one last time and return to the road at last... full-time.

But things are different, this trip. 

Road lust takes many forms, and I seem to experience most of them.  You
must understand:  it's passage away from HERE that is the lure -- and
not necessarily any particular HERE.  Just HERE:  wherever comfort has
degenerated into complacency.  (Oh yes, I've had some sweet layovers
indeed -- homes so lovely and warm that my wanderlust seems
perverted.)  But when restlessness grips you it cares nothing for your
degree of comfort, only for the instinctive desire to GO... the innate
quest for change.

Sound familiar?

This story is a watershed.  For 3.5 years (!) I have been in the
Silicon Valley area, taking a break from full-time travel to build the
new bike.  Of course it's not finished -- it probably never will be --
but it is now far enough along that further development can take place
on the road, away from the milling machine and Deep Clutter.  And there
now really is a nomadic research lab to justify my company name.  But
since so much time has elapsed since my previous reports, I think a
quick timeline summary is in order before I tell you about what's
happening now...



The Mother of All Layovers
- --------------------------

This all began in 1983, when the torpor of midwest suburbia became too
oppressive, the concept of growing up had been exposed as a farce, and
it occurred to me that a lifelong quest for passion was not such a bad
idea after all.  I built the Winnebiko and traveled solo for about
10,000 miles, taking me into 1985.

It was to have been only a short layover, but my Computing Across
America book became ensnarled in the sleazy nightmares of the
publishing business and I ran out of money.  In Ohio I built the
Winnebiko II and fell in love with Maggie... we hit the road together
in 1986, taking a year and a half to pedal our recumbents 6,000 miles
on both coasts.  In early 1988 we hit Florida:  my book finally came
out, and we bought a 35-foot school bus to haul inventory around the
country on the tradeshow circuit, living hand to mouth on book sales.

About 300 cubic feet of gasoline later, we rumbled into the San
Francisco Bay area.  It was the fall of 1988... and the plan was to
find a place to spend a year building the new bike, then dump the bus
and hit the road again.  But this was a seriously ambitious project,
and I underestimated it by about 75%.

We spent six months in Palo Alto, working in Alan Selfridge's ping-pong
room.  Six months in Milpitas, sharing a rented house with Dave
Berkstresser, designing circuitry in the livingroom and hacking
fiberglass on the rear deck.  Six months with Roger Grigsby in Santa
Cruz, working in tiny bedrooms and a funky garage, doing the console
metalwork and mounting boards.  Then we languished happily for nearly a
year in Soquel, renting a house with Dave Wright, working in space
donated by Borland International and then moving back to the house --
sweating over a desk in the school bus and puttering about in another
dusty garage, feeling way too much like a homeowner clinging to the
obsolete hobbies of youth.  And then at last the breakthrough:  a year
and a half in a 1200 square foot lab provided by Sun Microsystems in
Mountain View.

As lifestyles go, I cannot really recommend round-the-clock presence in
a windowless fluorescent-lit corporate environment.  But the resources
have been first class, the company supportive, and the people
stimulating.  The project moved steadily along.  Machines flickered to
life, wizard friends started spent late evenings here running cables,
machining, writing FORTH code, building boards, tweaking gears, running
the CAD system, hacking the unixcycle, brainstorming... and it even
began to seem that I would in fact get to pedal this thing again
someday.  In the summer of '91 I trucked it to Iowa for an aborted
attempt at RAGBRAI (blew a hub the first day), then proceeded more
slowly on a test ride through Illinois, Wisconsin, and the upper
peninsula of Michigan.

It was quite a reality check -- in some ways thrilling, in others
frustrating.  Bike mechanical components were quickly proven to be the
weak link, with the freewheel serving as the fuse in my drivetrain when
I pushed too hard one afternoon on a hilly section of the Fox River
Trail.  Gravity was now more of a factor than ever before, with 780
pounds of stuff (including my body) to haul up every hill -- although
active helmet cooling, a 105-speed geartrain, and pneumatically
deployed landing gear helped take the sting out.  But the brakes were
inadequate, and in a curious way the computers were a pain because most
of the on-board systems were yet unconnected and unprogrammed.  Halfway
up a killer Wisconsin hill on a 97-degree summer day, the words "dead
weight" take on a sinister tone... more than once did I contemplate
leaving a trail of useless gizmology in the ditch and breezing happily
into the sunset.

But I managed to avoid that temptation, and in Lansing an interesting
alternative presented itself:  the mothership.  The triggering event
was the purchase of six Japanese books to support my language study --
when the time came to pack the bike and pedal off to Ann Arbor and
points south, BEHEMOTH's trailer lid wouldn't close.  Aw hell.  This
got me thinking about the convoluted nature of this business, the other
motives in my life, and the need to rapidly relocate the bike to trade
shows, speaking gigs, interesting layover environments, and client
sites (I had spent over $3,000 on rental trucks in the previous year).
Within a few days, I was the owner of a GMC van and a 20-foot Wells
Cargo trailer.

Zooming back to the lab for the final phase, I threw myself into the
project once again... fighting the torpor of endless TO-DO lists,
living a reminder of all the reasons I want to travel.  Stress.
Deadlines.  Biz.  The endless sameness of days spent in physical
stasis, watching the contents of hard disks change to reflect the
latest details of my life but otherwise experiencing time's inexorable
passage with growing impatience.  But now, as I write this at the
beginning of April 1992, I realize that I'm at the beginning of a whole
new adventure, as unprepared as ever but deeply excited and anxious to
get on with it.

So what's all this mothership business?  Am I about to betray my
human-powered roots and become an industrial-strength RV'er?  Steve
Sergeant commented in the technomads alias that, "it was like the day
the music died for me when Steve Roberts announced he was becoming a
MOTORIST."  Time to explain...


The Mothership
- --------------

One nice thing about having this lab at Sun is that it can support a
lot of interesting projects that are impossible when living full-time
on a bicycle.  I have inventory, robust tools, and workspace.  The
cost, of course, is that I am immobile.  Since the bike is an ongoing
development project, I really do need workspace -- and finding it on
the fly while passing through an unfamiliar town can be extremely
time-consuming.  Quite simply, the mothership is a way to have the best
of both worlds:  a workspace that can be relocated on demand, serving
as a mobile home base for a succession of shorter bicycle tours.  This
may seem to take something away from the grand adventure of open-ended
bicycle travel, but it more than compensates by adding a layer of tools
that render the entire project more flexible and intellectually
stimulating (like allowing major book projects, consulting gigs, and
system upgrades without requiring a year's layover!).

It also adds another feature:  rapid deployment to places I would
otherwise avoid (cities).  This becomes significant when dealing with
the business side of this (um, you didn't think that publishing the
journal is my sole source of income, did you?) -- I'm now working with
a speakers bureau (Keynote Speakers), appearing at trade shows, and
doing a bit of consulting here and there -- some on-site, some
nomadic.

OK, so much for the quickie justification.  Now lemme tellya about the
mothership!

This is becoming a serious toy.  It's happening in two stages:  the
current system, a 20' trailer and an inadequate van, needs to be
replaced.  I can't do this all at once without eliciting polite
chuckles from bankers, so I'm trading the van for a robust truck and
pressing on with the mobile bikelab...  assuming that in a few months
I'll upgrade the latter to a 44' Wells Cargo fifth wheel.  These are
not at all like RV's, fortunately -- I researched those in some detail
and discovered that a huge percentage of their not-inconsiderable cost
is attributable to the implementation of someone else's idea of
"home."  But I need a machine shop, bikelab, R&D environment, inventory
area, office, and -- oh yeah -- a place to sleep and perform
body-maintenance tasks.  The Wells Cargo products should be
investigated by any nomad who needs to define custom space...  they
build everything from empty boxes on wheels to concession wagons, auto
carriers (like the racing teams use), mobile offices, and research
vehicles.  (The company is at 800-348-7553.)

My 20-footer has been configured with a suite of surplus workbenches
and office furniture, occupying the entire left side and front end.
Parts inventory lives in 500 tiny drawers and 32 Rubbermaid bins in a
custom shelving unit.  The bike lives on the right side, tied down with
ratchet straps, and can be removed via a ramp stowed under the trailer
(the big one will have a fold-down ramp door).  A small solar panel is
on the roof to keep the local battery (and the bike system) charged,
and I've remoted the bike's cellular and pager antennas via an
umbilicus.  A phone line from the bike's CelJack cellular phone
interface runs all the way to the driver's seat, where a cordless phone
with answering machine is velcro'd to the ham equipment rack.  There's
a long way to go -- this one will take care of the trip beginning on
April 15, but the full project is much more ambitious (of course).
I'll tell you about it in detail as it develops, but suffice it to say
that it will become a complete autonomous climate-controlled mobile
lab, linked full-time to the internet, networked to the bike, and
equipped with a full range of mechanical, electronic, and software
development tools.

The current trip begins April 15 after a talk at the Idea '92
conference, then takes me to Reno for a gig at the local ACM chapter.
Then I zoom cross-country with visits in Utah and Colorado, arriving in
Dayton just in time for the annual hamfest (the big one) -- where I'll
display the bike in the PacComm booth and speak at the Icom FM bash.
From there, I loop through Cincinnati, Louisville, Pittsburgh, and
Richmond for a round of visits, then make my way to Washington DC for
the Interop show in mid-May.  Here, we'll demonstrate the bike's
internetworking features (um, that is... whatever is working by then!)
and do an interview with NPR's "All Things Considered," then, well,
from there it gets vague.  I'll be back in Silicon Valley by October,
probably long before, to implement the big trailer and hit the road
once again.  Hopefully, somewhere after Interop there will be time
for a liesurely bike tour around Utah.

Yes, all this business stuff is the substrate that keeps me alive, but
as I plan these mothership excursions the key thing is to leave large
holes in my schedule to accommodate adventures more satisfying than the
quest for 60-foot parking spaces in unfamiliar cities.  The bike is
still the focus of the whole affair, and even though it's networked
with mothership and backpack in a multilayered nomadic system, it still
comes into its own when it's out on the road, lumbering along under
human power, computing and communicating on the captured energy of
sunlight.  As this journal continues to evolve in both print and
electronic forms, the spirit of BEHEMOTH will remain the focus -- even
as we diverge into all sorts of related tools and techniques that apply
to a wide range of nomadic needs.

As always, I invite your comments and questions, and I'm still looking
for interesting people who might want to become involved on the road or
with joint-venture projects!



BEHEMOTH Technical Update
- -------------------------

Deadlines are amazing things.  I can mess around for months, taking
up my time with schmoozing, planning, scheming, and reshuffling, never
seeming to make any real headway.  Then a departure date looms and
the project shifts into focus, help materializes, and things get
knocked off the TODO list at the rate of 3 or 4 a day.  Here's what's
been going on with the bike...


CELLULAR PHONE

The cellular phone is now alive and in use whenever I'm pedaling or
driving the mothership -- and the key component is the CelJack from
Telular (800-TELULAR for info; contact Jeannette Franson).  This unit
lives between the handset and the transceiver of my Oki 491 phone, and
provides a completely standard RJ-11 modular jack interface.  It has
the look and feel of a normal phone line:  plug in a desk phone, call
the bike, and the bell rings.

The wonderful thing about this is that all sorts of devices that were
not designed to work on cellular phones now work just fine.  I run the
line around the bike (and off-bike as well), and have used it with the
Touchbase 2496 fax/modem, the Telebit CellBlazer, the Panasonic
cordless phone with answering machine that's now velcro'd under the
fairing, and -- most twisted of all -- the credit card terminal.
That's right... in Seattle last month, I met a guy on the street who
subscribed to the journal -- I just took his plastic and did the
transaction on the spot.  Ain't technology wonderful?

Of course, I still think the cellular industry itself is full of
serious bugs.  The fact that a 576-page "Cellular Telephone Directory"
is a necessary adjunct to full-time roaming is absurd.  This is
an appliance, and should feel like one.  Unfortunately, every vendor
of airtime has a better way to do things, and none of them are
either compatible or obvious to the user.  The concepts of online
help and consistent user interface have obviously never occurred
to them.


HAM STATION

I've interfaced the CMOS Super Keyer with the Bencher paddle and the
Icom 725, and it works beautifully.  Performance of the HF system
continues to amaze me:  good DX is now quite routine.  I worked a
station in China during a photo session last week.

Things are still not ready for integrated bicycle mobile operation,
but Joe Dunn built the last two audio crosspoint boards and Dave
Harris is continuing to weave all the cabling into a completed network.
Software power control is working fine, and the whole thing is
finally starting to feel like a system.

PacComm just sent their delightful new Handi-Packet unit -- a tiny
full-function TNC that comes with a belt clip and internal 12-hour NiCd
battery.  This is literally plug-and-play:  I plugged the provided
cables into my HP-95LX palmtop and Icom IC-24 transceiver, and it
worked.  It has KISS mode and an internal mini-BBS as well.  A complete
packet system in a fanny pack or briefcase is now essentially
off-the-shelf technology... and don't forget that a number of
packet-to- internet gateways are now online.  Things keep getting more
and more interesting....   (PacComm is at 813-874-2980.)

On the ham radio theme, I apparently agreed in a weak moment to appear
at the Dayton Hamfest this year -- I'll have the bike in the PacComm
booth and speaking Friday night at the Icom FM Bash.  If you're there,
come say hello!


PNEUMATICS

I did it.  My arm kept getting tired from pumping up the air tank for
the pneumatic landing gear and the horn -- there's a slow leak I just
can't seem to track down.  The bike now has a small compressor that
converts photons into air pressure.  It's the little things that add
up....


FORTH DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM and MAC STATUS

More progress on the bicycle control system!  Thanks to Mike Perry's
expert help, the whole development environment for FORTH is now in the
console Mac -- using the slick script language that's part of
Microphone II.  It's now so quick and easy to hack code that I really
want to finish this update so I can get back to it.  HyperTalk will
still be the graphic user interface during normal operation, but we
found that using it to manage all the handshaking of program downloads
was, well, let's just say a bit too liesurely to be effective.

The other Macintosh news is that the handlebar keyboard is at last
alive.  Jay Hamlin and the folks at Infogrip have completed a Mac
version of the BAT chord keyboard, and we wired the processor onto the
BCP's nexus board.  Now I have no excuse for putting off the learning
curve on the new chording scheme... I can finally type while riding
again!

The mouse is another matter -- the ultrasonic head mouse from Personics
just isn't doing the job.  Apparently, the problem is no fault of the
manufacturer -- Steve Sergeant probed around in the circuit and noticed
serious phase jitter coming from the sensors on my helmet.  We've
concluded that this is a result of excessive cable length and EMI from
the BCP, and Steve wants to try adding filtration.  I've been playing
with Logitech's amazing new 6D ultrasonic mouse, but it may be overkill
for the application -- I'm about to try (hopefully) the new gyroscopic
unit from Gyration.  This would let me send high-level quadrature from
the helmet instead of tiny analog signals, eliminating the negative
effects of a long wiring harness and road noise.


UNIXCYCLE

The bike's SPARCstation has been a major issue for quite a while,
and it is now alive on the bench with a monochrome display from RDI.
I also just acquired the new Sharp TFT active matrix color LCD,
which is dramatically beutiful -- as well as an RDI SBUS card to
control it.  All this was intended to replace the 286 system in the
console.

But that involves major mechanical surgery, so an interim solution is
now underway with the help of a group of engineers here at Sun.  We're
building the SPARC into the Zero aluminum case (with solar panel) that
rides atop the bike's RUMP.  This system has 424 Megabytes of disk,
both screens packaged in a folding two-headed windowing environment,
the new 9600-baud Motorola Radius wireless modem, kayboard, trackball,
and external ports for CDROM, serial comm, ethernet, and floppy.  It's
not quite the same as being able to run it while pedaling, but in all
fairness, this system is more for the heavy-duty computing tasks like
high-speed daily internet mail transfers, still video, mapping, and CAD
- -- not on-the-road text editing and routine satellite and RF data
communication.  It won't kill me to stop and open a pack, I guess.  ;-)

The only problem with this approach is that it displaces office stuff
that lived in that case...  but that can all move to the trailer and
displace the now-obsolete DOS laptop (the SPARC can emulate DOS, and I
still have the Ampro core module system running the Private Eye).


HP-95LX PALMTOP

Finally, my favorite new personal accessory is the HP-95 palmtop, which
is the first pocket computer that I've found useful enough to want with
me 24 hours a day.  I don't have the space here for a full review, but
I've gotta tellya -- they did a beautiful job.  It's easily
interfaceable via serial or infrared link, accepts the PCMCIA cards,
and has a whole suite of useful applications in ROM:  filer,
communications, appointment manager, address book database, text
editor, Lotus 123, and a robust scientific calculator with solver.
These can all coexist and hot-key back and forth, meaning that you
don't have to close one operation to deal with another.  You can shell
to DOS if you like.  And new applications can be installed... like a
full dictionary and the Mobile Data Link.

MDL is magic.  I keep the 95 in a cradle that also carries the
Motorola NewsStream pager (stylistically compatible).  There's a serial
link between them, and the pager is on a national Skypage account.
Now, if someone wants to send email to my pocket, it can be done by
logging on to 800-SKYWORD and entering my PIN... or just using an
internet gateway that automates the process.  By prefacing message text
with special codes, items can be added to my TO-DO list, appointment
book, 123 spreadsheets, etc.  A friend at HP gets hourly stock quotes
this way.

Of course, this is receive only... but that's a temporary limitation.
I had a chance to see the Mobidem, which plugs into the 95 and
provides a BIDIRECTIONAL email link via radio.  I'll keep you posted...



That's all for now -- back to work!  Next time you hear from me, it
will be from somewhere Out There.  Now that I'm wandering again, I'm
interested in speaking gigs and interesting adventure or learning
opportunities...  See you on the road...


Cheers!
  Steven K. Roberts
  Nomadic Research Labs