Cryptosmith

I teach computer science at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. My area of interest is information security. I came to the academic world relatively late in my career – I’d spent a couple decades as a computing professional, usually working on R&D projects. I still do consulting in computer security, but mostly I write and teach.

My first “real” experience with a computer was on an IBM 360 running the old Disk Operating System at American University. Before that, the most I’d done was to try to write assembly language for an IBM 705 (though I really had no idea what I was doing) and muse about programs for a Wang programmable calculator we had in our high school.

Since then, I’ve worked on a PDP-8, 9, 10, and 11, a VAX, a 370, Multics, and various PCs and workstations.

My first personal computer was a Heath H89; my second was a Mac Plus.

Professionally I’ve written a lot of code in assembly language and C, some Lisp, and bits of other languages.

As a consumer, I am sometimes an early adopter, especially if I think I understand the technology. For example, I started buying DVDs in the early 90s: I’m addicted to movies and certain TV shows, and I knew it would beat out VHS.

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