I know of one incident from the fuzzy origin period of computers circa 1948-1952, two different oil companies, Carter oil and Gulf Research and Development Co., submitted similar problems in oil exploitation (if I remember right optimization problems on how best to get oil out of wells) to IBM's Selective Sequence Electronic Calculator (SSEC, a sort of proto-computers). In particular Carter Oil (which apparently was a subsiduary of Exxon) hired von Neumann as a consultant. As far as I've been able to find the SSEC was actually used for about 23 projects (another dozen were considered with some preliminary work done). Of these about half were done gratis for various research scientists, the other half were done on a cost basis for various paying clients, mostly scientists and engineers at US federal government (military) agencies. Of the 5 payed for by private companies, one was GE's turbine design, one was Fairchild Aircraft's atomic airplane division, one was by Reeves Instrument company to calibrate a missile guidance system, and then the two oil problems. This is not really a statistical significant sample and the SSEC was biased sampling because it was a philanthropic show piece ostensively meant for the benefit of scientists. Still oil companies were clearly early adopters and had problems that needed computing power but I've always been led to believe that in the earliest days of the electronic computer government was the biggest user of computing resources (electronic or otherwise), in the United States. And even many of the private interests were firms working on defense projects or other government contracts (military aircraft etc.). This oral interview ( http://www.ieeeghn.org/wiki/index.php/Oral-History:Enders_Robinson ) with Enders Robinson suggests that the use of computers in the geophysics of oil exploration did not occur until the 1960s, but that they were widely used at refineries earlier. On von Neumann and Carter Oil see: Aspray, _John von Neumann and the Origins of Modern Computing_ (1990), pp. 105-108 Here is a paper on oil extraction that credits with von Neumann with some help (talks about moving some stuff from desktop calculators to a card programmed calculator): http://www.aimehq.org/search/docs/Volume%20207/207-31.pdf My estimate of SSEC usage is based mostly on an unpublished manuscript (substantiated from the published record and elsewhere where possible), "Appendix B: SSEC Operation" (no date) in "SSEC, the first electronic computer" by A. W. Brooke, pp. B1-B12. A. Wayne Brooke Collection, University North Carolina at Raleigh, special collections, MC#268, Box 1, Folder #9: Series 2.3 writings. A. W. Brooke was the supervising engineer of the SSEC during its operation 1948-1952 and apparently found the summary of SSEC operation in IBM archives. -- Yours Truly, Allan Olley http://individual.utoronto.ca/fofound/ On Mon, 13 Sep 2010, 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

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