(Here's a message forwarded from someone else with email trouble posting to the list at present. Welcome to our new member Simone Turchetti -- Tom). I think that the claim is too vague to be considered either true or false. However, the mailing list members can check the existing literature in the history of geophysics that definitely documents important ties between the development of oil prospecting and the early days of computing. One important reference is the book by Charles Bates, Thomas Gaskell and Robert Rice "Geophysics in the Affairs of Man" (Pergamon, 1982) which shows some of these connections. A general point that needs to be made is that many geophysicists went into the field of oil prospecting with skills and experience in electronic engineering and sought to apply methods of signal detection to geological analysis. Therefore they were open to experiment with the commercial viability of their electronic instrumentation beyond the remit of oil prospecting and contributed to the advancement of electronic systems in general. And indeed -as Bates, Gaskell and Rice show- this is one of the reasons why Texas Instruments was established. The company was intended as an off-shoot of the Geophysical Services Inc. (one of the oldest firms in the field) for the provision of more refined electronic instrumentation (check Bates et al., pp. 309-317). Moreover from the 1960s, the needs of remote sensing in fields like oil prospecting (but also seismology and oceanography) propelled the search for methods of digital recording and processing of information which -again- strengthened the connection between geophysical research and the IT sector (check Bates at al., 164-169). So in my opinion there is no doubt that geophysical firms played a big role in the advancement of computing and invested heavily in the field. However it would be difficult to quantify this contribution, especially by comparing it with the investments by the US federal government or that in other equally important areas (such as aeronautics/aerospace). Bates et al. provides a lot of useful information, but those who want to read more should be aware that it is a book written a while ago to provide raw historical data on the advancement of geophysics, which by then had received poor historical coverage. Hope this helps, s.