Bruce has been around for quite a while now, having been born the 9th of January in 1940. That's before World War II! Well, that is before WWII so far as the United States is concerned. Now that particular date won't exactly "live in infamy" like December 7 1941, but it just happens to also be the birthday of Richard M. Nixon, but of course not in that same year. (Please don't ask me when he was born, but it was quite some time earlier than 1940.) Picture taken on or about December 7, 1941 by Uncle Jack Perri Mother, Dad, and Baby Bruce at Uncle Jack and Aunt Lillian's house. The Bruce Harrison birth happened at the Episcopal Hospital in Philadelphia. That was an imposing building on Lehigh Avenue, which may or may not still exist. In an ironic twist of fate, the baby boy was underweight, and had to be kept in the hospital (in hospital for our British friends) several days past the usual release date, to be "fattened up" a bit. The Episcopal Hospital did a wonderful job of that, as anyone who's met the guru lately will readily attest. Actually, Bruce is exactly the right weight, it's his height that's wrong. He's exactly the correct weight if only he were about eight feet tall, instead of five feet nine inches. As one might surmise from the name, Bruce Harrison is half Scottish and half English. Mother's maiden name was Mary Douglas Gunn (of the Glasgow branch of that clan) and his father was William Harrison, of the Yorkshire Harrisons. (No known relationship to William Henry Harrison, who had the shortest Presidency of the United States ever.) The early years were okay except for being the only non-Roman Catholic family in the neighborhood. Nobody at our church (Presbyterian) lived near us. In those days we all lived as an "extended family unit" in a house at 4815 Ridge Avenue owned by Grandfather and Grandmother Gunn. School started at the age of six, in first grade. (Kindergarten was the parents' option in those days.) The Wissahickon School (now a parking lot) was a large stone structure built many years before 1946. That school went only up to the sixth grade, so mother had me transfer to the Thomas Mifflin school in East Falls at the start of the sixth grade, so I could remain in that school through the eigth grade. This is getting awfully long for a Brief Bio! Let's skip ahead a few years. Graduation from the Roxborough High School was right on schedule in June of 1957. Thanks to the Russians and their Sputnik, I was able to get into a special arrangement with the U.S. Navy, under which I went to College during the regular school semesters and worked for the Navy at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard during the summers. The summer of 1957 was my first regular job experience, under the imposing title of Student Trainee, Engineer. The specialty was Electronics, which involved getting exposed to Radar, Sonar, etc. Under this arrangement, the Navy paid tuition and books for the first and the last year of undergraduate study, and paid a modest salary during the work periods. It took six years, but I graduated from Pennsylvania State University in June of 1963. Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (Electronics option). How long ago was that? Joe Paterno was NOT the head football coach. (That came later) During the years at Penn State, did service in various roles at the Student Operated radio station, WDFM. (250 watts, 91.1 MHz, State College, PA) Served as Board Operator, Disk Jockey, Production Manager, and news reader. A fun activity, but one that ate lots of time. See that diner? That place when I attended Penn State was called the New College Diner, to distinguish it from the older Penn State Diner just a few doors away. We students called this one "the Finer Diner", as its food was a bit better than the other diner's fare. This picture was taken on a trip sometime around 1983 or so. The older diner was long gone, and the "Finer Diner" had had its name changed, but little else. Inside it looked exactly like the 1963 version, and the menu still featured the old favorite "Grilled Sticky". That's a Philadelphia style cinnamon bun cut in half and fried on the grill in a melted pat of real butter! Sounds terrible but tastes GOOD! Not so good for the arteries, but students are still young anyway, what do they care about calories and such? Just enjoy! A Happy look for my parents. Picture taken Sepetember 1962 In 1965, changed jobs. Left the Philadelphia Navy Yard for an outfit that was part of the Navy's Bureau of Ships in Washington, D.C. Stayed with that outfit through about five changes of organization name (ended up as Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command) (That's a mouthful, isn't it.) and about a hundred and fifty re-organizations. During those years, I worked on many kinds of electronic systems, including Radar, IFF, Air Traffic Control, computer driven displays, closed circuit television systems, and other less exotic projects. In 1989, I left that organization (and the Navy's employ) and joined an outfit called Defense Communications Agency. At that agency, my work took place quite literally in a vault, complete with a combination locked door. To this day, the names of the projects we worked on in that vault can't be mentioned. Even the names of places we travelled to as part of that job are kept secret. (Travel to a classified site and perform classified tests was printed on the Travel Orders. Only those in the vault knew where we went and what we did.) Retired in 1991, having logged 33 years of Civil Service time. Toward the end of my tenure at Defense Communications Agency, I was engineering the installation of some display devices for the National Military Command Center down in the bowels of the Pentagon, and most of that work was not classified, so I can talk about it, but prefer not to. Still it's a lot more fun not talking about the stuff that can't be mentioned outside the vault than not talking about things that can be talked about. Believe this or not, I never did anything involving the writing of software until 1983, when the boss I was working for at my Navy job talked me into getting a TI-99/4A. He felt (correctly) that people in the electronics engineering business should become "computer literate" and that the TI, being inexpensive and readily available (bought mine at Sears) would be a suitable means for his employees to get their hands on a real computer. At first, it was Murder! Having just the console with Extended Basic and a cassette recorder for "mass storage" made doing even the simplest program an unendurable chore. Eventually I obtained the rest of the minimal useful system, including in the P-Box one SS/SD disk drive, 32K memory, RS-232 card, and a Star Micronics Delta 10 printer. Wow! This was GREAT! Programs could be loaded or saved in seconds instead of minutes. Listings could be printed on paper and studied carefully. But then there came a kind of "brick wall" working with only Extended Basic. There were lots of things I wanted to do with the computer that just plain could not be done in that language, or at least not by me. At the time, I hadn't yet even heard of Jim Peterson, else I might have stayed with Extended Basic and taken lessons from Jim. Instead of that, I got myself the Editor/Assembler package, and started teaching myself Assembly. I had a little help getting started from John Molesworth's book, but soon ran on past what that had to offer. In any case, the adventure into Assembly language was interesting. Sometimes fun, sometimes downright maddening, but many programs were created, and many are still being used by owners of the TI-99/4A all over the place. That's finished now. There will be no more new programs for the TI from me. All my free time now is getting used on web sites, both my own and those of others. Trust me, this html may be difficult for some folks, but compared to Assembly Language it's really Duck Soup! I've purposely skipped stuff like marriages and divorces, but I do have a daughter, a grandson, a partner of the female persuasion, and her two sons Jean-Guy and Marcel Barbeau. Oh, I forgot the cat! She allows us to share this house with her. We're tolerated as long as we feed her and change the litter box on a regular schedule. If anyone cares to know, the words "Assembly Guru" were first applied not by me, but by Bill Gaskill in reference to some program of mine that he liked. In more recent times, since the fall of 2000, much of my life has revolved around illness. A heart attack and some other complications left me having great difficulty walking and doing other ordinary things that once I could do. Since then, with my physical disabilities, I've concentrated more effort into things on the computer. Helping others with their web pages makes me feel good about myself, and I've finally done the writing that I've been wanting to do for some years. Eight books of mine now occupy space on the internet. Not many people read them, but that's okay, as the main satisfaction comes from the process of creating them. Of course if somebody wanted to make a blockbuster movie out of one of my "Nick MacGruder" stories, I suppose I could find some use for the royalties! In the middle of 2004, things got a bit better, after receiving a fathers day gift of a camera and taking up the hobby of photography again. I can now get around pretty much anywhere without the canes, and can stay alert for a bit longer at a time. Also I get the joy of taking pictures again, and thanks to the scanner sitting beside my computer keyboard, I can share those pictures via the internet. (Click Here!) Portrait at about age 6 The background on this page is the Tartan of the Clan Gunn, in honor of my mother's family. Click Here to download the Gunn Tartan (as gunn4.gif) Back to Main Page Pictures of the Guru Back to the Top of This Page Mary Douglas Gunn William Harrison Music on this page is a Scottish folk tune, Flowers of the Heath Sequenced by Barry Taylor
Bruce has been around for quite a while now, having been born the 9th of January in 1940. That's before World War II! Well, that is before WWII so far as the United States is concerned. Now that particular date won't exactly "live in infamy" like December 7 1941, but it just happens to also be the birthday of Richard M. Nixon, but of course not in that same year. (Please don't ask me when he was born, but it was quite some time earlier than 1940.)
Picture taken on or about December 7, 1941 by Uncle Jack Perri Mother, Dad, and Baby Bruce at Uncle Jack and Aunt Lillian's house.
The Bruce Harrison birth happened at the Episcopal Hospital in Philadelphia. That was an imposing building on Lehigh Avenue, which may or may not still exist. In an ironic twist of fate, the baby boy was underweight, and had to be kept in the hospital (in hospital for our British friends) several days past the usual release date, to be "fattened up" a bit. The Episcopal Hospital did a wonderful job of that, as anyone who's met the guru lately will readily attest. Actually, Bruce is exactly the right weight, it's his height that's wrong. He's exactly the correct weight if only he were about eight feet tall, instead of five feet nine inches.
As one might surmise from the name, Bruce Harrison is half Scottish and half English. Mother's maiden name was Mary Douglas Gunn (of the Glasgow branch of that clan) and his father was William Harrison, of the Yorkshire Harrisons. (No known relationship to William Henry Harrison, who had the shortest Presidency of the United States ever.)
The early years were okay except for being the only non-Roman Catholic family in the neighborhood. Nobody at our church (Presbyterian) lived near us. In those days we all lived as an "extended family unit" in a house at 4815 Ridge Avenue owned by Grandfather and Grandmother Gunn.
School started at the age of six, in first grade. (Kindergarten was the parents' option in those days.) The Wissahickon School (now a parking lot) was a large stone structure built many years before 1946. That school went only up to the sixth grade, so mother had me transfer to the Thomas Mifflin school in East Falls at the start of the sixth grade, so I could remain in that school through the eigth grade.
This is getting awfully long for a Brief Bio! Let's skip ahead a few years. Graduation from the Roxborough High School was right on schedule in June of 1957. Thanks to the Russians and their Sputnik, I was able to get into a special arrangement with the U.S. Navy, under which I went to College during the regular school semesters and worked for the Navy at the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard during the summers. The summer of 1957 was my first regular job experience, under the imposing title of Student Trainee, Engineer. The specialty was Electronics, which involved getting exposed to Radar, Sonar, etc. Under this arrangement, the Navy paid tuition and books for the first and the last year of undergraduate study, and paid a modest salary during the work periods. It took six years, but I graduated from Pennsylvania State University in June of 1963. Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering (Electronics option). How long ago was that? Joe Paterno was NOT the head football coach. (That came later)
During the years at Penn State, did service in various roles at the Student Operated radio station, WDFM. (250 watts, 91.1 MHz, State College, PA) Served as Board Operator, Disk Jockey, Production Manager, and news reader. A fun activity, but one that ate lots of time.
See that diner? That place when I attended Penn State was called the New College Diner, to distinguish it from the older Penn State Diner just a few doors away. We students called this one "the Finer Diner", as its food was a bit better than the other diner's fare. This picture was taken on a trip sometime around 1983 or so. The older diner was long gone, and the "Finer Diner" had had its name changed, but little else. Inside it looked exactly like the 1963 version, and the menu still featured the old favorite "Grilled Sticky". That's a Philadelphia style cinnamon bun cut in half and fried on the grill in a melted pat of real butter! Sounds terrible but tastes GOOD! Not so good for the arteries, but students are still young anyway, what do they care about calories and such? Just enjoy!
A Happy look for my parents. Picture taken Sepetember 1962
In 1965, changed jobs. Left the Philadelphia Navy Yard for an outfit that was part of the Navy's Bureau of Ships in Washington, D.C. Stayed with that outfit through about five changes of organization name (ended up as Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command) (That's a mouthful, isn't it.) and about a hundred and fifty re-organizations. During those years, I worked on many kinds of electronic systems, including Radar, IFF, Air Traffic Control, computer driven displays, closed circuit television systems, and other less exotic projects. In 1989, I left that organization (and the Navy's employ) and joined an outfit called Defense Communications Agency. At that agency, my work took place quite literally in a vault, complete with a combination locked door. To this day, the names of the projects we worked on in that vault can't be mentioned. Even the names of places we travelled to as part of that job are kept secret. (Travel to a classified site and perform classified tests was printed on the Travel Orders. Only those in the vault knew where we went and what we did.)
Retired in 1991, having logged 33 years of Civil Service time. Toward the end of my tenure at Defense Communications Agency, I was engineering the installation of some display devices for the National Military Command Center down in the bowels of the Pentagon, and most of that work was not classified, so I can talk about it, but prefer not to. Still it's a lot more fun not talking about the stuff that can't be mentioned outside the vault than not talking about things that can be talked about.
Believe this or not, I never did anything involving the writing of software until 1983, when the boss I was working for at my Navy job talked me into getting a TI-99/4A. He felt (correctly) that people in the electronics engineering business should become "computer literate" and that the TI, being inexpensive and readily available (bought mine at Sears) would be a suitable means for his employees to get their hands on a real computer. At first, it was Murder! Having just the console with Extended Basic and a cassette recorder for "mass storage" made doing even the simplest program an unendurable chore.
Eventually I obtained the rest of the minimal useful system, including in the P-Box one SS/SD disk drive, 32K memory, RS-232 card, and a Star Micronics Delta 10 printer. Wow! This was GREAT! Programs could be loaded or saved in seconds instead of minutes. Listings could be printed on paper and studied carefully. But then there came a kind of "brick wall" working with only Extended Basic. There were lots of things I wanted to do with the computer that just plain could not be done in that language, or at least not by me. At the time, I hadn't yet even heard of Jim Peterson, else I might have stayed with Extended Basic and taken lessons from Jim. Instead of that, I got myself the Editor/Assembler package, and started teaching myself Assembly. I had a little help getting started from John Molesworth's book, but soon ran on past what that had to offer.
In any case, the adventure into Assembly language was interesting. Sometimes fun, sometimes downright maddening, but many programs were created, and many are still being used by owners of the TI-99/4A all over the place. That's finished now. There will be no more new programs for the TI from me. All my free time now is getting used on web sites, both my own and those of others. Trust me, this html may be difficult for some folks, but compared to Assembly Language it's really Duck Soup!
I've purposely skipped stuff like marriages and divorces, but I do have a daughter, a grandson, a partner of the female persuasion, and her two sons Jean-Guy and Marcel Barbeau. Oh, I forgot the cat! She allows us to share this house with her. We're tolerated as long as we feed her and change the litter box on a regular schedule. If anyone cares to know, the words "Assembly Guru" were first applied not by me, but by Bill Gaskill in reference to some program of mine that he liked.
In more recent times, since the fall of 2000, much of my life has revolved around illness. A heart attack and some other complications left me having great difficulty walking and doing other ordinary things that once I could do. Since then, with my physical disabilities, I've concentrated more effort into things on the computer. Helping others with their web pages makes me feel good about myself, and I've finally done the writing that I've been wanting to do for some years. Eight books of mine now occupy space on the internet. Not many people read them, but that's okay, as the main satisfaction comes from the process of creating them. Of course if somebody wanted to make a blockbuster movie out of one of my "Nick MacGruder" stories, I suppose I could find some use for the royalties!
In the middle of 2004, things got a bit better, after receiving a fathers day gift of a camera and taking up the hobby of photography again. I can now get around pretty much anywhere without the canes, and can stay alert for a bit longer at a time. Also I get the joy of taking pictures again, and thanks to the scanner sitting beside my computer keyboard, I can share those pictures via the internet. (Click Here!)
Portrait at about age 6
The background on this page is the Tartan of the Clan Gunn, in honor of my mother's family.
Click Here to download the Gunn Tartan (as gunn4.gif)
Back to Main Page
Pictures of the Guru
Back to the Top of This Page
Mary Douglas Gunn
William Harrison
Music on this page is a Scottish folk tune, Flowers of the Heath Sequenced by Barry Taylor
