Sorry!  By the early '80's, I was already using personal computing to enhance my outdoor experiences (backpacking in the Rockies at that time).

My first personal purchase was a desktop unit ... a full blown Radio Shack TRS-80.  It was the first (and last) time I dropped $10K on personal computing, but since I was using it for a number of writing projects it was ultimately a business write off.  To that I added a 4-disk floppy drive bay, a Daisy wheel printer (think of an IBM Selectric with the ball flattened) and a flatbed plotter.

My wife was a beneficiary of this technology as she produced her dissertation on it.  (I was still "old school" at that time and had an IBM Selectric.)

Next came a dial-up modem, and by the mid-80's when I was doing a lot of flying, I added a "laptop computer" rather than have "dead time in the air.  This unit was a NEC PC 8300 series device (first released in '83).

Of course, before the internet there was ARPANET, let by DARPA (a Navy Research consortium of military, corporate and university entities).  E-mail came along followed shortly by FTP (file transfer protocol) which made data sharing easier.

Being a backpacker, I very soon became interested in add of the publically available data held/managed by the USGS.  Before long I was downloading data samples of various file formats to investigate content.  I finally found a data format that would give me the data to build topographic maps of virtually anywhere in the US.  However, I then either had to write the software to display the results or find someone who had already done that leg work. 

After a bit of sniffing around, I did find a source willing to share their software ... the U.S. Naval Academy.  Initially, I was scratching my head as to why the navy needed topo maps, but I soon realized this tool was not being used a lot by the SURFACE fleet.  So, after receiving the software and doing a little hand waving to get the data to match up to the software, I started producing topo maps.  It was only then I discovered that there were no rivers and lakes on the maps (although they were clearly designated in the data).  It didn't take long to come to an understanding of why that was ... all the landscape for the Navy topos is UNDERWATER! 

This deficit not withstanding, I did discover a feature in the software that was not specifically mentioned when I asked for it.  Once you developed a topo, you could then plot a route and trigger the "Fly By" option and the software would create a wire-frame image of the terrain and "fly" you through it.  Kind of cool for a piece of software that dated from the early '90's. 

Did I ever use the software for a backpacking trip.  The answer is yes. Doing research for a trip schedule to be along the East Clear Creek trail out of Eagle Colorado,  I was able to run down a local or two who knew the trail.  They described it as a "bit rugged."  So, I located the data for the area and generated a topo and did a fly-by of the valley route we'd take.  I was impressed by the near vertical walls on both sides of our track for much of the distance we'd travel.  I just wanted to be sure we would be able to camp below 10,000 feet and that option was established (although we'd climb to above 12,000 just poking around on day trips.

So, how rugged was the area.    (You need to Login or Register describes the crash of an Air Force plane on Gold Dust Peak (which we could see on our trip) that happened in April '97.  We were there late September '96.  The report outlines some of the resources brought to bear during the 3-week search for the crash site.  So, yeah ... I'd say rugged!

dd