
BEHEMOTH – Big Electronic Human-Energized Machine, Only Too Heavy - robin_reala
https://microship.com/behemoth/
======
dshep
I imagine a lot of people here might be too young to know about Steve K
Roberts. He had an earlier bike called WINNEBIKO (II?). Imagine yourself as a
kid in the 80s watching something like this on TV, it was super cool.

High-Tech Bike on Spectacular World of Guinness Records - 1988

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2G6DtfZFUU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2G6DtfZFUU)

Xerox PARC Winnebiko presentation by Steve Roberts - 1989

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU6MXakwcjI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU6MXakwcjI)

It's easy to overlook how inspiring this was without knowing about the context
in which we lived back in the 80/90s. No one had cell phones, few people had
computers, or had ever used a computer network, let alone the internet. I'm
not sure I had even used a computer at the time, and I saw this guy on TV
talking about being able to: write a book while riding his bike, talk to
people all over the world via computer network, work remotely, it was _poof_
mind blown. Like looking 15 years into the future.

Later on during University, after my first summer programming internship I
read his book, "Computing Across America", which I highly recommend. For me at
least, Steve was also kind of a lifestyle guru. Reading his book you realized
you that you didn't have to be chained to a desk in an office, that technology
would open up new lifestyles. It was a wake up moment where I tried to
visualize my ideal life, and where the normal way of things was no longer
interesting and something to avoid.

Steve Roberts has a youtube channel here:

[https://www.youtube.com/c/microship/videos](https://www.youtube.com/c/microship/videos)

------
mauvehaus
I love the description of the community involved in building it. It brings to
mind the quote from Antoine de St-Exupery:

“If you want to build a ship, don't drum up people to collect wood and don't
assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless
immensity of the sea.”

On the other hand, one has to wonder if he wouldn’t have needed a 105 speed
transmission had he heeded that other famous quote:

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there
is nothing left to take away.”

~~~
Aeolun
> “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when
> there is nothing left to take away.”

I think the problem is he already had the bike. If he followed this maxim he
wouldn’t have needed to start the project at all.

------
pmoriarty
Oh, Microship and the Winnebiko!

I'm so happy to see this obscure uberhacker on HN.

Stories about this guy's exploits would be just the sort my ideal vision of HN
would be exclusively populated by.

Real Hacker news.

His _" A Decade of Microship Development"_[1] is also well worth reading.

[1] - [https://microship.com/microship-
development/](https://microship.com/microship-development/)

------
geocrasher
I recently completed the initial build of a similar contraption, a 9 foot long
recumbent trike with lots of cargo capacity. Picture here:

[https://imgur.com/a/WrViRKD](https://imgur.com/a/WrViRKD)

Shaky YouTube walkaround here:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3SEndDnVXg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3SEndDnVXg)

I've been giving thought to how far I want to go with the electronics. LED
lighting is a no brainer of course. I have red LED strips for the rear that
will blink in patterns of my making. PWM will make it cool. But a Pi Zero W is
just SO powerful as a bike computer- how far do I want to go with that? Wifi
to a smart phone as a bike comuter display? Could work. Rear facing camera to
check on traffic? Why not? Current gear and gear inches for three stage
transmission?

A smart phone largely surpasses what Steve had available to him and what was
used on his bike, and miniaturization means no need for a trailer unless you
want the real estate for solar.

I don't know how far I'll go with mine. My main goal is to ride it and have
fun. Maybe for the next build, I'll become a hardware developer and start
writing code. Who knows?

And being an Amateur Radio operator, there are many battery operated portable
QRP rigs that would be a lot of fun to operate from a bike- if you stop and
set up a quick antenna, which is no big deal. There are even mobile HF
antennas available, but those present a major compromise, and QRP (less than
10w power) is already a compromise.

So the real question to answer is: How geeky do I wanna be? I don't think I
want to be as geeky as Steve was, but I also don't think I _need_ to be. I
don't expect to ride across the nation, just around the region ;)

------
paleogizmo
I vaguely remember this as a kid. For those who are better readers than I,
does this site describe what all the computer hardware actually does? I was
expecting something like primitive turn-by-turn navigation, but there doesn't
seem to be focus to this, just a whole lot of desktop hardware grafted on a
bike. It doesn't make any sense even in an era before common mobile hardware.

Edit: While mobile hardware really didn't get good until 20 years later, the
TRS-80 Model 100 existed in 1983 which had a real keyboard, could run third-
party programs weighed under 4 pounds, had battery-backed memory and _ran 20
hours on a set of 4 AA batteries_. So a non-absurd solution for some portion
of his design requirements existed.

~~~
iancmceachern
its so he could connect to telnet, and write his book as he rode.

~~~
The_rationalist
It's very dangerous to drive and write at the same time, I don't see how this
is usable

~~~
PaulDavisThe1st
He uses chord typing using buttons built into the handles used to steer the
bike. There's a claim that it's not that hard to learn.

------
iancmceachern
I saw him talk in our elementary school, met him, and still have his book. He
rode that thing all over the US and wrote a book while doing so. Most
interesting thing about his setup was the custom keyboard mounted to the
handlebars that was based on a stenographer type setup.

~~~
dbcurtis
What? No. as I recall he had 7 switches and just chorded ASCII

~~~
dbcurtis
Details here:
[https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1988-04/page/n43/mod...](https://archive.org/details/73-magazine-1988-04/page/n43/mode/2up)

73 Magazine, April 1988, page 43. Article says the switches are essentially
ASCII, but with the bits shuffled so that lower alpha mainly falls under his
strongest fingers. I'll let you read it for further details.

------
deegles
I wonder how light you could make this with current tech. A tablet computer +
raspberry pi would cover most of the features, plus electrified with today's
lithium batteries would make this a beast (pun intended) range-wise.

~~~
egypturnash
You could pretty much replace the whole thing with off-the-shelf stuff that
fits in a backpack. Laptop, smartphone, tablet, a decent Bluetooth speaker,
and you're good. Maybe some solar cells on the bag. You're still on your own
for the handlebar keyboards. Get a couple Twiddlers and cram the guts into
some grips, I guess.

And a trailer for nothing but camping gear instead of hauling around three
desktop machines.

------
s1mon
I remember following Steve Roberts at the time (probably on USENET). It's
entertaining to think how much of the tech on BEHEMOTH could be replaced by a
smart phone or tablet. There are a few things like the HAM radio, printer, and
some of the head mounted stuff that you'd still need in order to duplicate all
the functionality. The weight reduction and improvements to functionality
would be amazing.

------
nix23
I really miss that time, when computers where something special, floppy-disk
trade in school and that one guy with a Next-Cube without games but his father
said it's the most powerful machine, and endless "Death Knights of Krynn"
hours with friends....ok maybe i'am a 'adult' now...that's why, but IT really
lost most of it's magic.

~~~
dawg-
There are still geeks doing quirky and whimsical things with computers, there
always will be. They are just harder to find in all the noise.

~~~
white-flame
The noise is that everybody's trying to extract money out of computing.

The whimsy is in just enjoying it and exploring within it for its own sake,
which is the willingness to simply put time & money _into_ it without that
noise.

~~~
disqard
This is an insightful comment and applies to other pursuits as well — and
don’t forget Sturgeon’s Law.

------
samcheng
Pretty awesome. He had a binary keyboard, one button on each handlebar, and
could type at 35 WPM using it. Impressive! I wonder if there is a market for
that now, so people could text while biking. Or driving?

[https://microship.com/on-the-loose-in-dataspace/](https://microship.com/on-
the-loose-in-dataspace/)

~~~
ajuc
At 2 seconds per word you're probably better off with speech recognition. But
it wouldn't work in loud traffic.

~~~
egypturnash
BEHEMOTH hit the road in 1991. Speech recognition was... not a solved problem
at that point in time.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_NaturallySpeaking](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_NaturallySpeaking)

~~~
vermilingua
“I wonder if there is a market for that _now_”

~~~
egypturnash
Ah yeah, I missed that.

I bicycle everywhere and I sure would not wanna try taking my attention off
the road. Might be different if I was taking long cruises down the blue
highways like Behemoth was designed for. And probably quiet enough for
dictation to have a decent chance to work.

Two-finger keyboard sounds like something that goes in the bin of "weird
keyboards only nerds with tons of time to learn to use them can love" though,
right next to all the other chording keyboards people have made over the
years...

------
ppf
What I am about to say is not supposed to be insulting or personal, just some
observartions on relative culture. I spent a while reading the author's
stories from the road, and what I found most interesting was the disdain the
author expressed for "unenlightened" midwesterners, who are "intellectually
torpid". This is a very interesting project, but maybe from their point of
view, the author is wasting his capabilities on frivolous, selfish, and
unsustainable persuits. I was also intrigued by the author's idea that only
his, liberated view of public sexuality was correct. Reading between the
lines, I also would be uncomfortable in a public setting if a nearby couple
were being "openly sexual", and I don't think that's because I need some
liberation.

It does give some interesting insight into the development of Bay Area culture
and thought. Oddly enough, the modern Progressive views on liberated sexuality
have come full circle, with now almost contractually-described processes.

------
gonzo
I had Tadpole (my employer at the time) donate the SPARCbook.

BEHEMOTH was a cool project in its day. Imagine what could be done now.

------
sitkack
Related,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann_(inventor)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Mann_\(inventor\))

[http://eyetap.org/publications/](http://eyetap.org/publications/)

------
tejtm
He stopped by where I worked [1]; The computer on a phone thing blew me away
more that chorded typing on the fly.

I was still on V20/C64 without modems back then.

[1]
[https://halebikes.com/pictures/index.html](https://halebikes.com/pictures/index.html)

------
JohnJamesRambo
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus)
springs to mind.

"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One
must imagine Sisyphus happy.” -Albert Camus

------
raldi
How did it know its location?

~~~
drannex
Satellite uplink and GPS

~~~
raldi
In 1991?

~~~
p_l
It's explicitly described how and which parts were used.

~~~
raldi
Oh, oops. I Cmd-F'ed a bunch of things, and I thought GPS was one of them, but
clearly not.

