Seems to me that this is a complicated question. How do we measure consumers of computers? By who buys the largest number? That seems to be easy to adjudicate (sales records of the small number of producers would net this), but that approach leaves out quite a bit. Maybe we need to know that as a starting point, but then we have to ask about usage within the organizations that purchase them, both in terms of operations and in terms of how demanding those operations were. Also the question of use brings in university researchers. I know from my own work that aerospace engineers at Berkeley were early adopters but they didn't have their own mainframe in the 50s, so they wouldn't be trackable as 701-2 'owner.' But the research was funded by Boeing, so needs to be counted in the column of aero/defense consumers. Ann From: members-bounces@sigcis.org [mailto:members-bounces@sigcis.org] On Behalf Of David Alan Grier Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2010 8:19 AM To: Deborah Douglas Cc: members@sigcis.org Subject: Re: [SIGCIS-Members] petroleum and computers I tend to agree that it was a big consumer of computer cycles but I also have my doubts. After I wrote a Column in Computer in December 2006 on the Univac Service Center for the Petroleum Industry in Dallas, which famously lost money and closed in the early 60s, I received a a small torrent of emails from retired petroleum engineers who felt that they were finally receiving their due. As Jonathon noted, they were doing high dimensional fourier transforms and lots of linear programming, which consumes lots of cycles. I received emails from an Esso engineer, who noted that they took delivery of the first Univac 1103 in '56 and had von Neumann as a consultant. I also got a note from a Chevron engineer who told me about the work he did in the early 60s. At the same time, if you look at the companies buying large machines in the 50s, 60s, and early 70s you find that aerospace firms out number petroleum firms. Unless other evidence is out there, I tend to accept the thesis that the aerospace industry was the lead consumer of computers with petroleum behind it. David ---------------------------------------- David Alan Grier Vice President of Publications, IEEE Computer Society Associate Professor of International Science and Technology Policy Center for International Science and Technology Policy Elliott School Of International Affairs George Washington University grier@computer.org On Sep 13, 2010, at 6:47 PM, Deborah Douglas wrote: Colleagues, Recently, I received a question about a claim that the petroleum-seeking geophysics industry was once the greatest consumer of computers, only surpassed at some later point by the federal government. No citation was given and there is quite a bit of skepticism but where would you advise us to look to refute this claim (or perhaps my own aerospace bias is too strong and the claim is true!). Thanks, Debbie Douglas Deborah G. Douglas, Ph.D. Curator of Science and Technology MIT Museum, N51-209 265 Massachusetts Avenue Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 ddouglas@mit.edu * 617-253-1766 phone * 617-253-8994 fax http://web.mit.edu/museum * http://webmuseum.mit.edu * http://museum.mit.edu/150 _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members@sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://sigcis.org/pipermail/members/ and you can change your subscription options at http://sigcis.org/mailman/listinfo/members