"Computer Scientists Are Poised For Revolution on a Tiny Scale," by John Markoff. New York Times, November 1, 1999.

Excerpts
"Scientist at a variety of elite laboratories around the country are sharing a growing sense that they are on the brink of a new era in digital electronics. It will usher in a world of circuits no more than a few atoms wide, with a potential impact on computing, in terms of speed an memory, that may be too profound to fathom."

"…Researchers at Yale and Rice Universities, for example, plan to report in the journal Science (Note, below) in a few weeks that they...(have) created molecular-scale switches that can be repeatedly opened and shut—a necessary step in representing zeros and ones, the basic binary signals used in the circuitry of digital transistors."

"…(a number of researchers) believe that rapidly cascading advances in molecular-scale science may soon constitute what economists refer to as a disruptive technology—one that changes basic industrial assumptions, just as the transistor did in replacing the vacuum tube during the 1950’s, and as integrated cirtuits overtook individual transistors during the 1960’s. Some molecular electronics researchers envision an entirely new industry, perhaps within the next decade. "

Note:
The article runs a picture of Mark Reed, identifying him as "a Yale chemist" and a leader of research into molecule-sized machines. Prof. Reed is the chairman of Electrical Engineering at Yale. He is co-author of the upcoming report in Science and co-leader of a related memory project to be announced Dec. 6 at the International Electron Device Meeting in Washington.