Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/126921
a Wind (Continued from page 3) CJ Quit ~ AMA Government Relations Department Legislative Affairs Manager Gary L. .Winn. to pursue other interests. • ee WRITER o Brave New World This week I visited the old Cycle News office, which I hadn't seen for about a year. The difference was uncanny. Where was the familiar bustle and clutter and clatter of a busy newspaper madhouse? The workforce was busy all right, but the only sound was the faint patter of muEEled keyboards as they poured ideas from their talented brains into a kind of information storage battery called a computer. No yellow sheets of copy paper intervened·, no inky ribbons. The 'ideas appear on a TV screen. No carriage to throw at the end of each line, like I am having to do now on my obsolete (but cherry) Royal manual with the dumb cycle stickies on it. The hardest thing I ever had to do in motorcycling was learn to type. I prefer to be the blue pencil pusher, perfecting the work of better typers. My mind is my computer, but ah, I desire those powerful peripherals the memory programs, the cursor, the printer. I may have to come computer literate in my old age. Writers revise their stories without a pencil. Editors edit those stories by pushing a button, proofreaders correct them, and typesetters render them publishable automatically, almost. Theonly familiar intensity remaining of my memories of newspaper life is the good old pasteup department, where the darkroom never stops and the clock is always 10 minutes fast. Here the overall look of the newspaper is fashioned. Here they still use chemicals and T-squares and razor blades, hand crafting your pa-ges the old fashioned way. They still use paper and scissors and wastebaskets and tall stools and wide, sloping drawing boards; pens and pencils and tape are all in easy reach of the artist. The smell of hot paraffin in the waxer. I cast a fond glance and drew a deep whiff of the scene, because it, too is obsolescent. A generation already weaned on computer games will produce its "power users" who are getting into "desktop publishing" which can give us old "dedicated publishers" a run for the money. If the ideas are there, the brave new world offers the tools to publish a page that looks pretty darn near as good as this one, at the touch of a few buttons and soon, very soon, transmit that page to the ultimate reader's own system, which custom prints his copy right there on his desk! When that day comes, Cycle News, as the old guy in our TV commercial says, "Better get ready." Anybody want to buy a used Royal manual in good condition with original Camel Pro, Dirt Diggers and "Turn The Gas On Dummy" stickers? 'Cheap? • Chuck Clayton NO COMPROMISE From Mach 2 to 8 Second Pro Stock Special Congratulations to TERRY VANCE Pro Stock Winner setting a new NHRA record of 8.14 seconds Run with the winner. .. EGC Performance Gaskets 81;£ CllferllIia.. illt-~"'•. 7315 Industrial Parkway· Mentor, OH 44060· (216) 946-2210 UNBEATABLE 21