The summer of 1984 found the city’s nerds poor and disillusioned. Encouraged to pursue computer-science degrees, thousands found themselves unemployable in the city’s depressed economy. The Internet was in its infancy, and programming jobs were still controlled by the Mafia. Local electronics and comic book shops became hotbeds of discontent and radical Nerd Power discourse. As a record heat wave dragged on, nerds grew angrier. The August release of Revenge of the Nerds provided a rallying cry, and the streets quickly boiled over with enraged, bespectacled youth. As fate would have it, the Hell’s Angels and their affiliates held a thousands-strong motorcycle rally in the city at the time. After some initial clashes with the rioting nerds, the two formed an unlikely truce as they fought side-by-side against the police for two full weeks. In the heat of the battle, nerds and bikers hastily welded together underpowered nerd-owned Volkswagens with Harley-Davidsons to form light, powerful assault platforms with which to outmaneuver the police. In the end, they proved no match for National Guard tanks and Jeeps, and all but a few were destroyed as the authorities reasserted control. (In 1987, police put the city into a state of virtual lockdown for the release of Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise — a measure which proved unnecessary. The nerds’ spirits had apparently been broken for good.)

The summer of 1984 found the city’s nerds poor and disillusioned. Encouraged to pursue computer-science degrees, thousands found themselves unemployable in the city’s depressed economy. The Internet was in its infancy, and programming jobs were still controlled by the Mafia. Local electronics and comic book shops became hotbeds of discontent and radical Nerd Power discourse. As a record heat wave dragged on, nerds grew angrier. The August release of Revenge of the Nerds provided a rallying cry, and the streets quickly boiled over with enraged, bespectacled youth.

As fate would have it, the Hell’s Angels and their affiliates held a thousands-strong motorcycle rally in the city at the time. After some initial clashes with the rioting nerds, the two formed an unlikely truce as they fought side-by-side against the police for two full weeks.

In the heat of the battle, nerds and bikers hastily welded together underpowered nerd-owned Volkswagens with Harley-Davidsons to form light, powerful assault platforms with which to outmaneuver the police. In the end, they proved no match for National Guard tanks and Jeeps, and all but a few were destroyed as the authorities reasserted control.

(In 1987, police put the city into a state of virtual lockdown for the release of Revenge of the Nerds II: Nerds in Paradise — a measure which proved unnecessary. The nerds’ spirits had apparently been broken for good.)