[timelined]

Computers were at the core of Jurassic Park. Remember, the novel was published in 1990.

Among other important uses:

* the widespread use of computers for nearly complete automation of the park--maintaining feeds (to a certain extent), automatically delivering medicine, etc. These systems were buggy, but it was a major early demonstration of how computers could be used to automate out many jobs.

* Think the Internet-of-Things but for tracking hundreds of dinosaurs in xyzt space around the park using image recognition from hundreds of distributed sensors/cameras around the park.

* They had several Cray XP supercomputers in order to help with DNA sequencing.

* Ian Malcolm studied chaos theory--a field that is reliant on numerical simulations (rather than pure pen-and-paper calculation).

As a slight spoiler to the book: human hubris in building incredibly complex biological systems under the control of relatively simple technological systems is what led to the downfall of the park.