# HG changeset patch
# User Henry Thompson <ht@markup.co.uk>
# Date 1730386018 14400
# Node ID 2a14525c412e1b8e8873abc39f2e855d885339d8
# Parent  491d1952263de0aae1b27edda605ffecb2ececce
getting to MIT...

diff -r 491d1952263d -r 2a14525c412e CR_preface.txt
--- a/CR_preface.txt	Thu Oct 31 09:51:45 2024 -0400
+++ b/CR_preface.txt	Thu Oct 31 10:46:58 2024 -0400
@@ -1,6 +1,48 @@
+Born December 1949.
+
 After starting a degree at Oberlin in 1967, dropped out without
-completing 3rd year.  Applied to Graduate School at MIT in
-??, as a student in the  under the supervision of Peter Solivitz.
-The Media Lab was located in MIT's Building 20, just underneath the
-Artificial Intelligence Lab, then under the direction of ??.
+completing 3rd year.
+
+Out to BC with Katy in the fall of 1969, back to Cambridge and
+Philadelphia to see respective families.
+
+Had to get out of the US (draft), so that winter took over the old job
+of his brother Arnold in an NRC high-energy Physics lab, living with
+Katy and Arnold in an old farmhouse in a posh neighbourhood in Ottawa.
+Very snowy winter, record-breaking, 18 feet?, long driveway and a lot
+of shovelling, piled up to the 2nd floor.  Involve with Ottawa QUaker
+Meeting, a youth group, and a Mennonite youth group.  Stayed through
+the several years.  March 1971, employer partnering with the Univ. of
+Chicago Physics dept and LRL in Berkeley, went there, installed a
+PDP-9 / 15, in a 40-ft Fruehof trailer, moved from Ottawa to Fermi
+Lab, where Brian's office was.  Programmed in machine language (see
+below).  He could 'program like crazy' in the air-conditioned trailer,
+high-volume music in head-phones, but couldn't write English.  Lived
+in a hotel in Hyde ? park.  They owned an Austin Mini bought for $100
+in summer of 1970, working at a Quaker peace conference on Rhinestone
+island in lake near Ottawa.
 
+Katy went out to Berkeley that spring, where the experiment was to
+take place.  Married in June of 1971 at Pendle Hill / Swarthmore, then
+back to Berkeley.  Lived in a back yard house at Telegraph and Shannon
+(?).  Legally a Canadian resident notionally in US on a business trip.
+Experiment ran, wrapped and went back to Ottawa.  He wanted to stay in
+US, they ended up (autumn 1971?  1972?) living with his parents in
+Cambridge, where WCS was by then head of the new Center for the Study
+of World Religions at Harvard.
+
+Applied to Graduate School at MIT in EECS, started taking some
+courses, but eventually MIT admin said be couldn't be admitted w/o a
+UG degree.
+
+"Course on compilers, I had written a compiler, I'd written a tiny OS
+for a PDP-9 running a physics experiment".  Pat Winston sat me down
+and took me through the requirements for a CSEE degree, and decided
+he'd satisfied them all.  But he needed a Batchelor's thesis, so they
+took a paper from a course he'd taken in the autumn, called "Comments
+on Comments", and added some stuff, it got marked and accepted as his
+thesis, so awarded the degree and could actually be enrolled as a
+student under the supervision of Peter Szolovits.  The Media Lab was
+located in MIT's Building 20, just underneath the Artificial
+Intelligence Lab, then under the direction of ??.
+