On May 23rd, 1986, Scott and I packed up our prototype RTDDA system, which was basically a clone of an IBM-PC desktop computer with some extra circuit boards in it, and flew to New Orleans to demonstrate it to Shell Oil. They were interested in using it to survey potential oil fields and potential and existing pipelines.
This was our first flight with the system and we just packed the PC in its original cardboard box and took it along as extra baggage. As a precaution we put big stickers on it stating that the box contained delicate electronics and asking that it be treated with care.
I can still vividly remember walking up to the long table topped with metal rollers used to move the luggage over to the side…just as our box came flying through the big opening in the wall and crashed onto the rollers. We gently picked up the box, along with the rest of our luggage that followed it through the window with much less force, and got a cab to our hotel.
After checking in we set the system up in our room and turned it on…nothing. It didn’t boot up. We opened the metal housing and looked inside. Several integrated circuit chips had popped right out of the sockets. We put everything back where we thought they should go and tried again…still no go. Our demo was scheduled for the next morning, and we ended up spending most of the night messing around with that PC, finally getting it to boot up.
After getting a couple hours of sleep we packed stuff up and carried it over to the Shell building, where we set it up in a very fancy room…I guess the executive boardroom. A bunch of very serious-looking executives and scientists came in and took their seats around the table and told us we could start the demo.
Scott fired up the computer and started his program, which was supposed to read data from the WORM drive and display our signature waterfall display on the screen. Scott and I were holding our breath until the first few lines were displayed. With an audible sigh of relief we started breathing…and the computer crashed.
After a couple more attempts with the same result we told them what had happened, and guessed that the hard drive had been banged too hard and a couple tracks damaged.
Fortunately we had brought along a slideshow (do you remember 35 mm slides?) that we planned to leave with them. Someone quickly set up a projector, then Scott did his talk and I moved through the slides showing them pictures of what they should have been seeing on the computer screen.
The guy in charge…I think his name was Earl Doyle…saved the day by taking this all calmly and expressing amazement about what the program was capable of doing.
They appreciated the potential enough that several of them flew out to Seattle a few weeks later and spent a couple days with us, playing with the system…on a new computer.
This was the start of a long and profitable relationship between Scott and Shell. Scott spent many year on Shell surveys all over the world, and Earl watched over him like a second father.