John M. B. Wilson

This page is NOT seriously under construction, I just put it here because once in a blue moon someone comes looking for it (according to the web server logs). You might as well just look here since that's where the interesting stuff is on this machine.

Random stuff will be added here all the same in no particular order.

Hardware projects
Floppy disk parameter table -- you've got to be as big a nerd as I am to care about this
Cute blonde chick (the kind with feathers) posing with Digby (a computer) (needlessly large file)

I might as well blather on about myself a bit just in case someone really is looking for me and isn't sure they have the right John M. B. Wilson, since it's a common name (except for the pretentious middle initials, that's why they're there). It seems like everyone thinks they served with me in a war, or voted for me in the 1972 presidential primaries or something. So I'll put lots of trivia here so you can be sure whether or not I'm the JW you remember.

Married to Judy (Frangie) Wilson, summer 1995 to summer 2000.

Jobs, most recent first:

Programmer/president/janitor at Digby's Bitpile, Inc. DBA D Bit, Troy, NY (1995-)
(wrote a simulator for replacing 1970s minicomputers with PCs)
Programmer (contractor) at Strobe Data, Inc., Redmond, WA (1996)
Hardware engineer and programmer at Fornax Computer Corp., Trenton, NJ (1992-1993)
Programmer/tester (summer intern) in CPU/OS group at Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, CA (1989)
Programmer at Northern Research and Engineering Corp., Woburn, MA (summers/work terms 1984-1990)
(evidently NREC was eaten by Concepts ETI, Inc. in June, 2000, before that it was part of Ingersoll-Rand)
Programmer at John Sears's unsuccessful Massachusetts gubernatorial campaign (1982)
OK, so he's my uncle, whaddya expect for a first job.

Schools/colleges attended (however briefly), most recent first:

SUNY Albany, Albany, NY (audited Dutch classes part time, 1998-1999)
It's everyone's safety school, but the price is right (auditing is free to NYS residents) and I was amazed to find Dutch being taught locally. Evidently SUNY settled a weird lawsuit and couldn't teach German for a few years there, this was their loophole for doing the next best thing (Dutch is sort of like "German Lite", all the details are different but the general idea is the same). But I really did want Dutch, since I wanted to know what the heck my weird Surinamese (then-)in-laws were saying about me.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY (1984-1992 on and off) -- BS in Computer and Systems Engineering, 1992
Outstanding extra-curricular activities, but the college itself is the worst one I've ever attended (out of six!). But it's where I started so it's where I finished up, after flunking out and getting re-admitted several times in between before I finally got the hang of actually attending classes. The faculty is just as sorry to be stuck there as the students are, and it really shows.
University of Vermont, Burlington, VT (summer 1991)
Commuted 121 miles each way to daily 7:30 AM Thermodynamics lectures, just to get readmitted to RPI one last time. Many speeding tickets (had to change my route after a cop in Dorset set up a 6 AM speed trap just for me!) but it paid off, I worked like a dog, got a B- in 3 1/2 weeks, and got back in to RPI.
Bennington College, Bennington, VT (1988-1991) -- BA in Music, 1991
Extremely low-key school, it's easy to coast through but then again SOME of the professors are real gems and will bend over backwards if you show any enthusiasm. Unfortunately I wasn't much of a self-starter as a college student... But it was a refreshing change from my real life as a nerd.
Boston University, Boston, MA (fall 1986, summer/fall 1987)
I wish I could have transferred to BU permanently, their engineering school was a very mellow place. Even though BU is huge compared to RPI, its EE department is much smaller, everyone knew everyone etc. And it didn't have RPI's horribly skewed M:F ratio. Plus, BU grads don't have to spend the rest of their lives saying "no, not Rochester, Rensselaer!" But no, they rejected my transfer application.
Harvard Summer School, Cambridge, MA (summers 1983, 1986)
Too bad they didn't have more of the courses I needed because it was a lot of fun, even though the faculty was mostly scabs (the real Harvard folks are on vacation in the summer), they knew their stuff and they were bubbling with infectious enthusiasm. And the grading was easy.
Concord Academy, Concord, MA (1981-1984) -- H.S. diploma, 1984
I chose this school as a lame compromise, at the time I thought there was still a chance that I wouldn't turn into a computer nerd so I didn't want to put all my eggs in one basket by going to Commonwealth. But it turned out to be a really wonderful school, academically anyway. RPI was a step backwards after this.
Shady Hill School, Cambridge, MA (1976-1981)
I officially resigned from the SHS class of '81 after the ENTIRE class stood me up at our 10th reunion. Well at least the '76ers were friendly and kept me company, but what the hell was that about?! And I liked Shady Hill, no one messed with me there, I kept a low profile, well as much as is possible with a graduating class of just 35 people.
The 20th reunion was a lot better, there were six of us (plus SOs and kids) at Beth Hakes (now Beth Kurth)'s house on 06/02/2001. It was really cool to see those folks after so long.
Cambridge Friends School, Cambridge, MA (1971-1976)
No I'm not a quaker, so this was a baffling experience -- and I'm not quite sure why I repeated kindergarten. At the time I was there, CFS wasn't quite the politically correct nightmare that it has evidently evolved into now. It was no fun though, I got hassled a lot and the kids at the housing project next door took a special interest in me, wonderful. And it was academically unstructured, which wasn't what I needed.
Fayerweather Street School, Cambridge, MA (1970-1971)
I barely remember this one. I just have a mental image of a huge sandy area, and a fair where Brother Blue (local storyteller and all-around interesting character) told stories in the playground. I don't remember why my parents pulled me out either, as far as I know everything was going great. Evidently the school has moved and isn't on Fayerweather Street (@ Huron Ave.) any more.
Lesley Ellis School, Cambridge, MA (1969-1970)
Does nursery school count as school? I don't think they were calling it Pre-K back then. Well it's pretty much a blank (I was 3-4), I think one of the teachers was named Krishna but that's about all I have. The higher grades hatched some chickens. It was somewhere in Cambridge when I went there.

Interests (you must be easily amused if you read this far):

Computers and electronics -- assembly language, easy hardware design
Birds, or at least, the one that lives here (a sweet but very spoiled cockatiel)
Hang gliding. Well I'm new to it (that is, I have very little experience, but spread over many years), but it's insanely fun.
Music -- harpsichord, recorders, cornamuses, crumhorn, bagpipe, synth when nothing else is available or in tune, and electric guitar and/or bass once in a blue moon, just for fun. Only harpsichord and recorders are at all serious.
Auto/motorcycle mechanics -- out of necessity more than anything
I used to build turbo Plymouth Horizons for fun, but I wrecked my original one ('81 with '85 Laser motor) in a stupid one-car rollover accident on a twisty back road in Vermont in 1989. My second, snazzier, intercooled project ('83 with '88 Shelby Daytona motor) consumed itself in a pillar of flame at the side of the road in 1992 after I swapped fuel injectors and reinstalled the fuel rail in the dark, by feel, guess I missed a clamp. And no I don't drink or use drugs, I really am this stupid! They were fast though, between those two cars I lost my license three times. My final Horizon was mostly stock ('78) and lived to a ripe old age (239K miles, one motor swap and a couple of transmissions along the way). But the frame got pretty rusty and the rear suspension uprooted itself when I tried to drive it to my new place in MA. Finally the city of Troy complained and I had to scrap it in spring 2004.
Until recently I also had an '85 Voyager with a '91 2.5l motor in it, still with a '85 top end, yielding a justifiably rare carbureted Chrysler 2.5l which I slapped together (and rebuilt as I went) after the original 2.2l engine threw a rod less than 50 miles after I bought it. The engine was in pieces for about 3 years, initially for exploratory surgery but by the time I realized it was just a hole in the head (so much for the $40 pressure test that Noel's machine shop claimed they did), the cylinders had surface rust inside them, so I had to drop the pan and remove the balance shafts so I could get at the rods to pull the pistons out to re-hone the cylinders, anyway it got way out of hand. But I got it all back together and running, with help from the wonderful Kathy Nolan, then used it for occasional hauling for a few years and sold it for $150 when I got sick of insuring it (it's cheaper to just rent a cargo van when I need one).
So now I drive my boring '95 Subaru Legacy because it Just Works (and can stick to my steep snow-covered driveway), or my rusty old '72 Honda CB750 (the bike that never dies, quite) in nice weather.
Learning foreign languages and then forgetting them. Schools have tried to teach me French (for 8 years), Spanish (2 years), Dutch (1.5), and German (1), but I couldn't speak any of them to save my life. My latest attempt was taking an adult ed class in Italian in fall 2000, we didn't get very far but for $45 you can't beat it. I went to a few classes again in spring 2001, since I'd already forgotten everything, but it was the same course over again.
Home renovation/modification -- again, out of necessity, since my house (now my old house) is a real dump, but at least now it's a dump with straight floors and central AC, a spiffy new 31' sidewalk out front, a stripped and rebuilt five-bay garage with a kick-ass 150A power hookup and a concrete floor (was gravel and you could see through the roof), the back porch has a nice new roof with properly vented R-38 insulation instead of nothing, and the water main isn't lead any more. And I'm kind of proud of my japanese maple tree and concord grape vines, they've really taken off in the last couple of years. Well OK now I transplanted the grapes to Monson and they don't like the sandy soil (but they're gradually getting used to it).
Skiing -- I'm nothing special as a skier but who's counting, I love it anyway, I briefly got seriously back into it a while ago after years of not bothering (what was I thinking, I married a non-skier). And one of the nice things about living in the icy north is that there are ski areas in all directions, so I can go any time as an easy day trip. But now that I'm on the southern edge of Mass. it's a longer drive so I hardly ever go.
Just for the heck of it I kept a ski diary during my last triumphant return a few years ago, since I hit a lot of mountains in a short time I wanted to take notes to keep them straight in my head. Well at least that was true until I broke my shoulder, that cost me two months of not skiing so it turned out to be a pretty low-key season for me after all. I didn't quite break even on the MRG season pass.
Ham radio (KA1BNJ 1978-1980, KC1P 1980-), but not really active lately (my station is assembled again though so very occasionally I fire it up).

If you still think you've found the right John Wilson, drop me a line, my email address is my last name @dbit.com. Otherwise, take a look at www.johnwilson.com, there's a registry of other JWs there. Well at least there used to be, looks like the squatters got to it.