I remember when we were in awe of the Cray and how it was used to process seismic data.
Back in college (1980) I recall a professor saying how those computer guys thought they were so great - until they had to process the piles of seismic data industry would give them.
I recall reading about one of the oil companies using virtual reality (years ago now) where a person could enter a room that would have three dimensional seismic data displayed and one could walk among the formations to get a better understanding of the geology.
All of us computer nerds in junior high and high school in the early 80s loved seeing the specs on those supercomputers compared to our Apple IIs, Commodore 64s, Atari STs, TI 994/As…