Feul cell computer power! I have been reading about fuel cells for two years, and the prototypes and tests go on and on. All of a sudden there is this use on a smaller scale that really seems interesting and promising. 10 Hrs on a little methanol cartridge.

Fuel Cells in a Laptop?

I went to a new industry conference in Boston last month, Search Engine Strategies 2003. It was for my new techie specialty, Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Quite an interesting and vibrant bunch of people were there. The reason for this blog is because while I was there, I ran into a luminary of computer lore that brought back memories. This bearded and familiar man said hello to me in passing and I kept thinking I knew him. A little later, I heard somebody mention Dan Bricklin's name. Flash! The light went on and I realised he was THE Dan Bricklin who started it all on personal computer software by creating VisiCalc in 1979!

By creating a useful application with his partner Bob Frankston, it gave "real" people reasons to buy expensive computers, not just the hobbyists and nerds. I remember his name and reputation from Byte magazine and all that back in the early days of computing that actually seem like last week to me. Here is Dan's blog: http://danbricklin.com/log/ if you want to read an interesting story or two. Dan has not been idle since those days, either, it seems, Having been a consultant to Lotus, with their 1-2-3 spreadsheet, the next runner to pick up the "visible calculator" baton. Then he was a pioneer in the pen tablet arena, which never took off, and created industry software, like Demo-it, and founded Slate and Trellis, among other things.

Here is a scan of a VisiCalc 5 1/4" disk sleeve I saved from those days. This may have been from the IBM version that we felt would not make it because it required a hard disk, which people would find too expensive.

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