[SIGCIS-Members] petroleum and computers

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