October is a special month in the history of handling data. In a month that holds the anniversaries of the first adding machine and the tentative birth of the Internet, October is also when the first all-electronic calculations were performed on an experimental computer. John Vincent Atanasoff was an associate professor in mathematics and physics at Iowa State College. Beginning in September 1939 with a $650 grant from the school, and with the help of a top engineering student, he created the first electronic digital computing device. The computer was no laptop: it was about the size of a desk and weighed more than 700 pounds. In the U.S. today, there are over 13,000 establishments manufacturing computers and other electronic products, with a value of nearly $340 billion. You can find more facts about America from the U.S. Census Bureau online at <www.census.gov>.