Stanley McChrystal said White House has a ‘we should do because we can’ approach to international relations.

I have also noted that this doctrine also applies to the AI evangelists: never mind if AI has potentially deadly side effects; never mind if it may harm elementary and middle school children learning to read and write; never mind… We’re pushing it because we can.

The article appeared in the Guardian a few months ago.

The Jolene Doctrine

Silicon Gold Rush

https://computerhistory.org/events/the-silicon-gold-rush/

Home Events

The Silicon Gold Rush

How AI is Driving the Development of New Chips

It all began with this 3-input NOR gate, used in the Apollo Guidance Computer, ca. 1968. The chip contained three transistors and four resistors (RTL Logic). Credit: Smithsonian Institution.

“Beware of the Blob, it creeps.” Data Centers coming to your neighborhood.

So here’s the latest news from Mount Storm. Refer to my previous posts on the power plant there—it seem like ages ago. A large scale, combined cycle gas powered plant envisioned for the complex:

https://westvirginiawatch.com/2026/07/28/proposed-wv-natural-gas-plant-to-generate-power-for-dominion-energy-customers-in-virginia-pjm-grid/

Proposed WV natural gas plant to generate power for Dominion Energy customers in Virginia, PJM grid

A look inside the Mt. Storm Power Station, a coal-fired power plant in Grant County that could be combined with a newly proposed natural gas plant owned by Virginia-based Dominion Energy. (Photo courtesy of the West Virginia Secretary of State’s Office via Facebook)

O

“Data Center Alley” is in the upper left corner. So much has happened since I uploaded the 2025 Techtopia map. I have backed away from discussions of Data Centers, since they are in the news almost every day. Even the comics section of the Post has comic strips about them. The backlash has been swift and brutal. My personal view is that the issue is not the physical buildings. Even when they are proposed for sites of abandoned smokestack factories in the Rust Belt, they are still opposed. The reason is not the physical building, but the AI that goes on inside them. My concern with LLMs is well-known. If I don’t feel comfortable, they how can you expect those who have less of a background in computing to understand?

(An example: opposition to a proposed Data Center complex on the site of the former, coal-fired power plant at Dickerson, Maryland):

https://bethesdamagazine.com/2026/05/23/plans-proposed-dickerson-data-center-online-public/

Or, as the character on Galaxy Quest said, “Hey guys, I just wanted you to know that, the reactors won't take it; the ship is breaking apart and all that... Just FYI.”

Here’s the latest report from the NVTC:

THE IMPACT OF DATA CENTERS ON VIRGINIA’S STATE AND LOCAL ECONOMIES

NVTC Report

If you don’t have the time to read it, here’s the executive summary:

Northern Virginia is recognized as the world’s largest hub for digital infrastructure, and data center development continues to expand across the Commonwealth of Virginia. In fact, two large data center developments announced in 2025 in Botetourt and Wythe counties signal growing investment and expansion into the Shenandoah Valley and will help diversify local economies. This report highlights the profound economic, fiscal, and social impacts of data centers throughout Virginia.

Six Key Findings:

Economic Impact: In 2025, data centers generated $31.8 billion in economic output in Northern Virginia and nearly $40 billion statewide, supporting more than 112,000 Virginia jobs through direct, indirect, and induced effects. Statewide employment includes 17,900 operational jobs and 36,700 construction jobs, alongside billions of dollars in wages and benefits.1

Job Creation & Workforce Development: Data centers directly employ thousands in technical, engineering, and operations roles while indirectly supporting a broad supply chain. Workforce initiatives with colleges and universities throughout the state help ensure a strong pipeline of skilled talent for IT, cybersecurity, and skilled trades.

Attracting New Manufacturing: Since 2024, data center suppliers have announced at least six new manufacturing investments, adding more than 1,000 manufacturing jobs in Virginia.

Fiscal Contributions: Data centers strengthen local and state budgets by paying $1.3 billion in property taxes in Northern Virginia and contributing more than $1.5 billion annually in Virginia state tax revenue, even after incentives.

Community Benefits: Localities leverage data center tax revenue to maintain lower residential property tax rates and invest in housing and education. For example, data center taxes fund Henrico County’s $60 million Affordable Housing Trust Fund and Mecklenburg County’s multi-site school program.

Sustainability Leadership: Data centers are advancing Virginia’s clean energy transition through large-scale solar investments, water conservation strategies, adoption of renewable fuels, and low-carbon construction practices. These efforts align with Virginia’s climate goals while reducing environmental impact.

_______________________

Data centers do more than power the digital economy—they are shaping Virginia’s future. By creating jobs, supporting education, generating tax revenue, and advancing sustainability, data centers have become an indispensable asset to Virginia’s prosperity and resilience.

On that topic: Buddy Rizer, “The Godfather of the Cloud,” is scheduled to speak on “Virginia’s Data Center Boom: What Comes Next?” at a public briefing in Herndon on May 12. I plan to attend. Send me a note if you need details on how to register.

I wrote about Buddy way back in July, 2024. That seems so long ago:

Buddy Rizer

According to Google Gemini (sic!), it was Buddy who coined the term “Data Center Alley.” I looked over my 2008 book, Internet Alley, which was about Tysons Corner. There is just one reference to Ashburn: on p. 148, a photograph of the new headquarters of AOL, which moved to Ashburn from Tysons Corner around 2000, just as the Internet bubble popped. The AOL-Time Warner merger was a flop, but the fiber cables that AOL laid from Tysons Corner to Ashburn were one of the key factors in the growth of “Data Center Alley” over Cambridge, Palo Alto, or other centers of network activity.

My bicycle (a folder!) is parked on the bridle path, which runs parallel to the paved W&OD for a large portion of its length. A reminder that before there was Data Center Alley, Ashburn was in the heart of the “manure-and-money” set. But in all the times I’ve ridden on the trail, I’ve only seen horseback riders fewer than a half-dozen times.

My previous post on the symbiotic relationship among power companies, fiber-optic cable routes, and abandoned rail corridors:

Rails-to-trails PBS show

Power lines along the W&OD, Ashburn, VA.

Now I learn that the Mountain View coal mine, located a few miles west of Mt. Storm, is closing:

Mountain View coal mine to close

Mettiki Coal’s Mountain View Mine, owned by Alliance Resource Partners, announced on Jan. 29 its plans to lay off nearly 200 employees and permanently close the mine, effective April 1. If the closure goes as planned, no active coal shippers will remain on the former Western Maryland after the mine depletes its stockpiles. It is a stark reminder of the challenges facing the coal industry today, specifically on the rails of a fallen flag whose profitability was heavily derived from hauling West Virginia coal during most of the 20th century.

Today, Mettiki is served by CSX at the end of its 35.8-mile Thomas Subdivision, about 3.5 miles west of Bayard, W.Va., and about 65 miles southwest of Cumberland, Md. The only other rail customer in the area is the Mount Storm Power Station on the nearby Stony River Subdivision, a 16.7-mile branch line also of Western Maryland ancestry that connects with the Thomas Subdivision in Bayard.

With Mettiki’s planned closure, coal will still travel the original “Wild Mary” for delivery to Mount Storm, but those tons will be mined elsewhere on CSX, such as Bailey Mine on the former Monongahela Railway in southwestern Pennsylvania. Mettiki provides tons to the power plant today, but due to the mine’s proximity, that coal moves by truck.

Mt. Storm power plant

The growth of data centers, not only in northern Virginia but elsewhere, has postponed to closure of many coal-fired power plants. What will the future bring?

There is no Cloud

There Is No Cloud

$650 billion in hyperscaler capex. Three-year transformer lead times. 75 seconds to thermal runaway. This is the definitive guide to what AI is actually built on. 100+ pages.

Rather than try to summarize it, I have culled the section that addresses why Data Centers are located where they are, and why Ashburn, Virginia is the world’s epicenter:

7.3.2 Geography of the Cloud

If heat is the problem, why don’t we just build all the data centers in the Arctic? Or at least in North Dakota or Canada?

It seems logical. But the value chain is constrained by more than just temperature.

1. Infrastructure: You need power and fiber. North Dakota has limited infrastructure for data and power compared to the dense corridors of the East Coast.

2. Latency: Increased latency from being far away from the internet exchanges in Ashburn or Chicago makes real-time applications sluggish.

3. Human Capital: “Think of how high of salaries you’d have to pay people who are qualified to live in the area,” notes one observer. Getting a qualified network engineer to move to Minot, North Dakota, requires a massive premium.

4. Air Quality: Cooling with outdoor air (free cooling) requires the air to be filtered and humidity controlled. In agricultural or dusty areas, this is a massive added cost.

5. Regulation: Canada has native title laws and environmental assessments that can lock you up in court for years. You might get approved, but by the time you do, your hardware is three generations old.

….

6. Geopolitics: Russia is cold and has cheap power. It is also an option only if you “don’t mind offshoring all the data and chips into a superpower with a well-known proclivity for cyber espionage”.

So, we stick them in Virginia. We piggyback on the infrastructure built for the NSA, CIA, and DARPA decades ago. We drain the water, we stress the grid, and we pretend it’s sustainable because the latency is low and the fiber is already in the ground.

Read the full report.

The Wall of Sound and the high water mark of analog

“When they [the lemon trees] came to the end of their life cycle, they put out a final, massive crop of lemons… It’s a strange sight, to see such exuberance before death…” Such displays… feel out of character for a plant and more akin to our own species, with its uncontrolled, devastating growth.”

In the mid-1970s, the analog world of analog audio recording, reproduction, performance, and writing, gave way to Digital Signal Processing. Radio receivers followed the same route: a few A/D conversion chips, a DSP chip, some software — piece of cake, right? A recent article in IEEE Spectrum (25 Fe. 2026) has an even more telling example:

Jimi Hendrix was a systems engineer

The author, Rohan S. Puranik, a computer engineer, analyzed the suite of signal-processing devices, some of them off-the-shelf, another custom designed, that helped produce his unique sound. (I need to add that Hendrix was a pretty good guitar player even without those devices, but we’ll postpone that discussion for a later time.)

Image credit: James Provost, from IEEE Spectrum, 25 February 2026.

Read the article for a detailed discussion of the wave forms that Hendrix was able to produce. But the days of analog were numbered, as I described regarding the Dead’s Wall of Sound. Hendrix died while the analog world still dominated. We’ll never know what he might have done with the advent of digital signal processing. With the application of the Fast Fourier Transform, plus advances in A/D and DSP chips, the world went digital.

The FFT was introduced in 1964

How IBM Research first demonstrated the revolutionary Cooley-Tukey FFT

YouTube video about FFT

But as the author states, “Modern guitarists can reproduce Hendrix’s chain using separate plug-ins in digital audio workstation software, but the magic often disappears when everything is buffered and quantized.” Would anyone care to disagree with the statement that “magic” is gone from modern popular music?

View from the Ashburn, VA Silver Line Metro stop. The aircraft in the photo is preparing to land at Washington Dulles International Airport. Photo by the author.

Now it is old news. But things are happening, and fast. I could cite any one of a dozen studies of the growth, but this one seems to be the most comprehensive and, in my view, objective, concerning the centers’ use of water. Read it at your pleasure:

Data Center Expansion in Virginia: Closing Critical Gaps for Informed Water Planning and Permitting

Data Center expansion in Virginia

The James River, flowing through a gap in the Blue Ridge

In a forthcoming post, I will address how the centers are meeting their energy needs by going “behind the grid.” Stay tuned.

What the 80th Anniversary Represents
The year 2026 marks 80 years since the public unveiling of ENIAC on February 15, 1946, a moment widely recognized as the birth of the modern computer age. ENIAC — the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer — was the world’s first all‑electronic, programmable, general‑purpose computer, and its debut fundamentally reshaped science, engineering, and society.

Why ENIAC Was Revolutionary
ENIAC was developed at the University of Pennsylvania’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert. It was originally designed to compute complex ballistic trajectories for the U.S. Army during World War II — calculations that previously took human mathematicians days or weeks.
Key breakthroughs included:
• Fully electronic operation using vacuum tubes
• Programmability (though rewiring was required)
• Massive speed improvements over mechanical calculators
• Led to a design that inspired generations of computer architectures
Many historians consider ENIAC one of the greatest engineering achievements of the 20th century.

How the 80th Anniversary Is Being Celebrated
Several organizations and communities are marking the anniversary with events, exhibitions, and educational programs:
World Computer Day 2026
The global theme for 2026 is “ENIAC 80th Anniversary: The Computer That Changed the World.”
Events highlight:
• ENIAC’s global impact
• The stories of its founders and their families
• How wartime innovation shaped modern computing
Local Celebrations in Pennsylvania
Given ENIAC’s Philadelphia roots, regional institutions are especially active. For example, a museum in West Chester, PA is hosting exhibits commemorating the unveiling and exploring ENIAC’s legacy in the digital age.
ENIAC Day – February 15
Each year, ENIAC Day raises awareness of the machine’s contributions and honors the people who built and operated it. The 80th anniversary gives this annual celebration special significance.

John von Neumann, “First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC,”

Moore School of Electrical Engineering, June 30, 1945. Smithsonian Institution copy

Why This Anniversary Matters Today
The ENIAC anniversary isn’t just nostalgia — it’s a reminder of how quickly computing has evolved. In 1946, ENIAC filled a room and consumed massive amounts of power. Today, your phone outperforms it by orders of magnitude.
But the conceptual leap ENIAC represented — that machines could be fully electronic, programmable, and general‑purpose — is the foundation of everything from laptops to AI.

If you are interested in celebrating with us, sign up below. Free to visit on-line.
Sign Up Here:
https://www.helicoptermuseum.org/event-details/eniac-day-celebration

Gearing up for 80th Anniversary Celebration of ENIAC

Hello Friends of Compuseum-

American Helicopter Museum, West Chester, PA
February 15th, 2026 (Sunday) Starting at museum open at 1PM (EST). Video Presentation runs two hours from 2PM-4PM (EST) in the museum
Auditorium, Afterwards is 1 hour duration meet and greet. Museum closes at 5PM (EST).
This is also a virtual/online/hybrid event on the Zoom Platform.
Invitations via Helicopter Museum and Compuseum

$20 per person for Museum Entry. Zoom attendees no charge, Registration Required.

Sign Up Here:
https://www.helicoptermuseum.org/event-details/eniac-day-celebration

Presentation on Zoom and in Auditorium

Kickoff By:
Paul Kahan (CEO- Helicopter Museum) 2 minutes
Jim Scherrer (CEO- Compuseum) 2 minutes

Kathy Kleiman - “Deep Dive Into Proving Ground People” Author- Proving Grounds; Purchase Book here: https://a.co/d/52qkpvl (Confirmed - In person or Virtual)

Brian Stuart - “The ENIAC in Context”
A deep technical dive into how the master programmer makes the ENIAC satisfy the criteria necessary for universality in the Turing sense and to clarify the relationship between Turing’s work and that of Mauchly and Eckert. (Confirmed - In Person)

Paul Ceruzzi - “Perspective on ENIAC, 80 years On” Author “A New History of Modern Computing” book along with Tom Haigh. (Confirmed Virtual)

Tom Burick - “How Today’s High School Students built a full sized replica of ENIAC, from scratch!” IT Instructor, PS Academy, Arizona. (Confirmed, Virtual)

Bill Mauchly - “Giant Brain Takes Over the World” the story we can never let go of. Bill is from First Family of Computing - Son of John Mauchly and Kathleen “Kay” McNulty Mauchly (Confirmed, In Person)

Chris Eckert - “Recollections of My Dad” First Family of Computing - Son of J. Presper Eckert (Confirmed, Virtual)

Gini Mauchly - “What Kay McNulty would Tell you about How to Be Successful.” First Family of Computing - Daughter of John Mauchly and Kathleen “Kay” McNulty Mauchly (Confirmed, In Person)

Naomi Most - “Did my IT career result from my DNA” Granddaughter of Kay McNulty (Confirmed, Virtual)

Dr. Tim Bartik - “Recollections of My Mother”. Son of Jean Jennings Bartik, 1st ENIAC Programmer (Confirmed, Virtual)

Jeffrey Yost - “The ENIAC’s Unveiling: Shaping Metaphors and Meanings in Computing” Director, Charles Babbage Institute for Computing, Information & Culture (Confirmed, In Person)

Paul Shaffer - “How the ENIAC made Quadrotor Drones Possible; From Vacuum Tubes to Vertical Flight” ENIAC Historian at PENN- (Confirmed, In Person)

Ken Chaney - “See PENN’s Supercomputer” with Associate Director of AI and Technology for PARCC at the Betty Holberton Data Center - Visitors will see the Betty Holberton supercomputer at PENN (named after Betty Holberton, ENIAC programmer) https://parcc.upenn.edu/systems/betty/ (Confirmed, On Site)

Show & Tell - “Audience Participation” Q&A session where audience members can show off their ENIAC equipment or memorabilia using the screen share option. If you have ENIAC equipment or memorabilia you’d like to “show off”, please let us know in advance.

Wrap Up Thank you from - Jim Scherrer (Compuseum); Paul Kahan (Helicopter Museum)

1 hour cake party at museum (4-5PM) then after-party.



Jim Scherrer, President and Founder

Data Center Awards Ceremony

Join NVTC at Stone Tower Winery on Feb 18 for the 2026 Data Center Awards​, an evening celebrating the business leaders driving one of the most critical industries in our region.

Awards Overview

The NVTC Data Center Awards​ celebrates the statewide business community and public sector leaders and the enormous growth and contributions of Virginia’s data center industry.

On another front in the race for AI: Today’s Washington Post (Jan. 21, 2026, p. 1) describes how Anthropic scanned millions of books, and then DESTROYED THEM. I know that is normal for scanning operations, and I hope there are other copies in existence, but…

Here’s the link (behind a paywall):

Washington Post article

I may have posted this before, but here is the web site for the class action suit against Anthropic:

Anthropic settlement

Welcome to the Anthropic Copyright Settlement Website

Are you the legal or beneficial copyright owner of a book included in the Anthropic Copyright Settlement?

Your Legal Rights and Options

Of course, I went immediately to the page “Anthropic Works Lookup” and found ten of my copyright, refereed publications. I’m flattered.

If you find yourself snowed in today, have a look at this list and see what they got of yours:

Works Lookup

Anthropic Works List Lookup

To see if your book is included in the settlement, select how you would like to search and enter your search terms.

For help with the lookup tool, please read our search tips.

More information about how the Works List was created is available in FAQ 49.

So what’s the connection? Well, where do you think the digitized works are now located?

“Blow the horn, and tap the tambourine
Close the gap of the dark years in between
You and me, Cassidy”

I’m not posting all the lyrics for copyright reasons, but you can Google it. Perhaps the finest collaboration between Bob Weir and John Perry Barlow. The song was named after a woman named Cassidy Law, but it is also a clear reference to Neal Cassady.

Long before that song was written, Neal was the focus of “The Other One”: “With Cowboy Neal at the wheel / Of the bus to never ever land.” But even before that was the song “Cryptical Envelopment”: “The other day they waited / The sky was dark and faded / Solemnly they stated / ‘He has to die / You know he has to die.”

He drove the bus “Furthur,” which was made famous in Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test

(I need to add that Wolfe never rode on the bus, unless I am mistaken.)

In 1968, he died while walking along a railroad track in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico— a lovely town that became a destination for American expatriates and wanderers in the 1970s.

“And when the day had ended / with rainbow colors blended / His mind remained unbended / He had to die, you know he had to die.”

Before he was Cowboy Neal, he was Dean Moriarty, the hero of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road.

Jack Kerouac

The book was published in 1957, based on events that took place about a decade earlier. No need to go over how significant its publication was, and still is. But it had a devastating effect on Neal Cassady. It destroyed him.

“Jack was the observer and Neal was the doer. And that of course was what Jack loved about him, although he envied Neal’s ability to enter into everything like he did.” — Carolyn Cassady

Neal Cassady had to die so that Kerouac could effect a radical transformation of American literature.

One final observation. In his later incarnation, he was the bus driver, while Ken Kesey, the Dead, and others sought a higher plane of consciousness. He was Ralph Kramden. But when he was with Kerouac, he drove: not a bus, not a Cadillac, but a Hudson Hornet: a humongous car with a powerful engine that enabled it to outrun anything else on the road.

No other car would have fit the bill.

Bailey coal Mine

At one time, coal dominated as an energy source for U.S. power plants. Now, mainly thanks to “fracking,” natural gas is the primary source, supplemented by wind turbines and hydro. Geothermal and solar are still a ways behind.

Coal from the Bailey mine is used at power plants. But a significant fraction of it is shipped, via the CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads, to the port of Baltimore, to be exported other nations.

Coal train switching on to the “Old Main” track at Point of Rocks, MD. To the left is the “Metropolitan Subdivision,” which leads to Washington, and which by coincidence passes by the author’s home. The Met Sub also handles coal traffic, even as nearly all coal-fired power plants in the DC area have been closed.

Discharge of warm water into Potomac

Dickerson, MD coal-fired powerplant. Closed.

And here’s a piece about “forever” plastics. But don’t our phones & laptops also qualify?

Forever Chemicals in Data Centers

Julie Bolthouse, director of land use at the Piedmont Environmental Council, stands in front of a data center in Herndon, VA, while speaking speaks to attendees of a “data center alley” tour on Sept. 30, 2025

And finally, new about Maryland politics and Data Centers:

Maryland overrides Gov. Moore's veto

So here is a “take” from Jennifer Taylor, of the Northern Virginia Technology Council. I’m reprinting it verbatim. If you find this of interest, I urge you to join the Council — they sponsor events that get to the heart of what is going on:

****************************

We’re all seeing the headlines lately asking, “Are we in an AI bubble?” “Is this real growth or just hype?” Smart questions, and both worth paying close attention to.

Last week, I read a sharp Wall Street Journal piece, How the U.S. Economy Became Hooked on AI Spending, that cuts through the noise. It breaks down just how much of this year’s GDP growth is being fueled by AI and which tech giants carry most of that weight. I thought you’d appreciate the highlights.

Here’s the punchline: AI accounted for half of the GDP growth, in the first six months of 2025.

• AI is propping up the U.S. economy right now. Growth has become so tied to AI investment and a surge in AI-related wealth that a slowdown would ripple across the entire economy.

• Our dependence on AI is only increasing. Four companies (Microsoft, Amazon, Alphabet, and Meta) are set to invest a staggering $344B in capex in 2025. That’s 1.1% of U.S. GDP from these firms alone.

• Spending on software, computer equipment, and data centers boosted GDP growth by roughly 1 percentage point (annualized) in the first half of 2025.

• Nvidia continues to dominate the AI chip market. Even though most chips are imported and don’t fully count toward U.S. production, AI spending still added 0.8 points to GDP in the first half of 2025. Put simply: AI doubled our growth, increasing GDP to 1.6%.

• Outside AI, the picture is much softer. Job creation is slowing, unemployment is nudging up (4.4%), and private business investment (minus AI) has been flat since 2019. Commercial construction is mostly down — except for data centers.

Here’s the twist:

Everyone is counting on AI to deliver long-term gains, but those gains haven’t materialized yet. The investment is massive; the measurable impact is still catching up.

Why this matters for Northern Virginia:

As the data center capital of the world, our region isn’t just watching this trend. We’re powering it. Data centers remain one of the few booming construction sectors nationwide, supporting jobs, investment, and growth.

But with leadership comes responsibility and risk. We need to stay laser-focused on:

• Market volatility,

• Supply chain strains,

• Rising AI-related debt, and

• The big question: when will AI deliver the productivity surge everyone expects?

There’s much more to come as this story evolves. I hope this gives you a clearer snapshot of how tightly the U.S. economy is now tied to the AI boom — and why Northern Virginia’s digital infrastructure plays a starring role.

This is where it all started, ca. 1960: Tysons Corner as a communications hub in the event of an atomic attack. Cue the Netflix drama “ House of Dynamite,” where, in the final scene, a government official goes into a tunnel at the “AJCC,” in the lower left corner of this diagram.

News about Nvidia's plans

And some good news. If you would like to visit "Data Center Alley” but you don’t own a car or don’t want the hassle of driving in NoVa traffic, you can now visit it from the Ashburn Station on the Washington Metro’s Silver Line! Here’s a photo. Note the aircraft preparing to land at Dulles Airport.

Analog aids to the scholar, 1975

No need to go into detail about its invention: the story is covered by an excellent book, “Empire of the Sum: the Rise and Reign of the Pocket Calculator,” by Keith Houston.

Historians discuss the introduction of the Altair personal computer as the major event of the decade. There are other claimants to the title of first personal computer, but it was the announcement of the Altair that led Bill Gates and Paul Allen to move from Boston to Albuquerque, to found Microsoft. The Altair was announced in the January, 1975 issue of Popular Electronics, which, as the legend goes, was seen in a Harvard Square newsstand by Paul Allen, and ….

But let’s get back to the pocket calculator. One of the writers for that magazine was a man named Forrest Mims.

Forrest Mims

(The Altair personal computer now in the collections of the Smithsonian was donated by Forrest Mims.)

In May 1976 He published an article in the magazine, “Here Are The New Programmable Calculators!” He was excited about the advent of devices that could remember and execute a sequence of instructions — in other words, they were programmable. He noted that some of them, including those from Hewlett-Packard, had the capability of branching to a sequence of steps based on the results of a calculation.

A “conditional branch” — the attribute that marked the difference between “calculator” and “computer.”

I discussed this earlier in my post about the German engineer Konrad Zuse;

Konrad Zuse and the "first" computer

For Mims, the calculators that had this capability were true “computers,” even if they were small enough to be held in the hand. The digital takeover had begun. For the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz mission, in which an American Apollo spacecraft rendezvoused and docked with Soviet Soyuz capsule, the American astronauts carried an HP-65 programmable calculator, as a backup for on-board (and legendary) Apollo Guidance Computer.

Programs, in magnetic cards about the size of sticks of chewing gum, for the HP-65 used during the Apollo-Soyuz mission. Photo: National Air and Space Museum.

Mims was especially interested in the The HP-25, the smallest of the HP products. He did not explicitly say so, but I argue that the HP-25 was therefore the world’s smallest true computer.

A 49-step program I wrote for the HP-25, to calculate amortization payments for a mortgage.

Paul Krugman on renewable energy

I am more interested in what it looks like on the ground. It helps if you have an SUV with rugged tires (I didn’t; got a flat). But here is what the builders of the wind farm have to say—including their astute observation that coal and natural gas are not going to be replaced anytime soon:

Ned Energy report

I hope my former colleagues at the National Air and Space Museum can explain the aerodynamics of the blades.