They were marketed for embedded control and data acquisition in laboratories and factories. See the text on page 5, in "The hardware", where it tells how you

They were marketed for embedded control and data acquisition in laboratories and factories. See the text on page 5, in "The hardware", where it tells how you can send your program on paper tape to DG and they send you back a read-only memory you can plug in - so your program begins running on power-up without help from an operator. I recall seeing a Nova used in an experimental psychology lab. The first production medical CT scanner included a Nova, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_computed_tomography http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-ray_computed_tomography.