“Become a Good CBer”: Citizens Band Radio Service Rules, 1978

The CB fad of the 1970s entered the public consciousness through a series of economic, political, and technological circumstances. The 1973 oil crisis, which put long-haul truckers in a tough spot due to gas shortages, along with the new federal 55 mile-per-hour speed limit, made CB radio a key method of information dissemination for truckers in a newly hostile economic environment…

Calling All Computists: The Us Festival in ‘Silicon Gulch Gazette’, 1982

In April 1977, computer enthusiasts gathered in San Francisco for the inaugural West Coast Computer Faire. (The quirky spelling of the word “Faire” evokes another nerdy subculture born in California: the Renaissance Faire.) Two personal computers that would go on to dominate the first half of the red-hot PC market in the 1980s had their debut that year: the Commodore PET and the Apple II…

Living Pod: The GMC Motorhome, 1973 – 1978

Combining the insular self-sufficiency of a lunar module with the intimidating bulk of a futuristic tank, the GMC Motorhome was the perfect attack vehicle for the leisure wars of the 1970s when—encouraged perhaps by the hermetic novelties of the space race—the recreational activities of the wealthiest fragment of the planet began to reflect a growing preoccupation with what we might call modular living…

Grues and Invisiclues: A Personal Remembrance of Infocom

I first encountered Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy book series in 1985. I’d caught glimpses of the tatty-yet-much-loved BBC television series from 1981 on my local PBS station, and that sent me to the bookstore to find out what the heck this British science fiction comedy was all about. Over the summer of 1985 I tore through the paperback versions of the first three volumes in the series…