College Football Site Dots-and-Boxes Site
David L. Wilson Waisman Center Room 446 Cell: 608/698/7211 1500 Highland Ave.; Madison, WI 53705
During the 1970 TAA (Teaching Assistants Association, AFT, AFL-CIO) strike, I decided to just picket rather than strike. I was on their executive committee as the Engineering area representative. I was back in Turkey for the summer of 1970 writing a student records system for METU at the time of the Sterling Hall bombing. Still pro-union, I dropped my membership in the UFAS (United Faculty and Academic Staff, AFT, AFL-CIO) to save money and joined the unaffiliated WUU (Wisconsin University Union) and MASA (Madison Academic Staff Association). Still a socialist, I dropped my membership in the Socialist Party, USA in 1994. On the other hand, I own stock--my first purchase was Computer Science Corp. in 1974. I have been an entrepreneur, selling an early Macintosh spelling checker through a partnership called "Champion Swiftware."
I have never drunk (alcohol that is) and never smoked. Sometime during the 70s, I gave up eating red meat because mammals are relatively intelligent animals. Thus, for me, pork is not the "other white meat." In 1996, I give up caffeine due to an irregular heart beat. Even though I play sheepshead (the German card game schafkopf) regularly, I do not gamble. I was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in 2008. As a result, I'm exercising more than ever.
My wife, Ann (married '71) has a Ph.D. in Curriculum and Instruction from UW. She retired from being the director of Wingra School in Madison (an independent progressive K-8 school) in 1998. She then taught a Children's Literature course at Edgewood College until 2009. We have two daughters, Sonja (born 1978) and Lydia (born 1981). Lydia is a National Merit scholar and has a Ph.D. in Eastern African Historical Archeology from the University of Virginia after graduating Summa Cum Laude from Bryn Mawr. She married Adam Marshall. They made a special trip to Japan for the ceremony. She and Adam have twins born in 2011. She is now an assocaite professor at DePauw University. Sonja was a National Merit finalist and All-State Scholar, finished 2.5 years at Bard College and then graduated from Edgewood College. Sonja married Timothy Tatro in June 2007 at our house. Ann and I are Quakers, even though Ann and I were both Unitarians in our youth.
At home we have Macintosh computers. My first computer was an S100 bus system I built from a kit from the now defunct Digital Group. We owned a Lisa computer from 1984 to 1999, which we ran as a Macintosh.
I first started programming in 1963 at UW-Milwaukee. We had an IBM 1620.
IBM 1620
Memory 0.01 Megabtyes
Disk None--everything loaded from cards each time
Speed Slow. About 100 instructions per second.
Input Indirect--punch cards on a keypunch and feed into
computer's card reader
Printing Indirect--computer punched cards which were listed by
a tabulating machine
Display Typewriter
Editing Off-line--update cards in the input card deck
Cost $500,000 in 1995 dollars
Size Pickup truck
Programming the IBM 1620 was bizarre by today's
standards.
On the Web, I maintain the College Football Performance Rating System, the College Football World Wide Web Site and the Dot-and-Boxes Analysis Site.
David Wilson / dwilson@cae.wisc.edu