The laptop and the sm on tour are one and the same being. While I didn't call the show from my computer, almost everything else in my life worked off of my computer. From taking care of my personal finances online, to being able to contact venues (via email) at whatever hour I might be awake and available - verses having to try to call during a normal business day. I have a mapping program on CD that tells me how long its going to take to get from city to city, plus where to find addresses in a city (without having to go online). I remember one night when I literally had a line of actors waiting outside my hotel room, all with their room's phone books in their hands, each waiting to punch addresses into my computer to get directions.
I have offline editors on my computer, for making lighting disks for venues with light boards that I didn't have a disk for yet. I typed in the show to email to venues for sign language interpreters. Instant delivery, saved on postage. I could send spreadsheets back to the home theatre with our weekly expenses, so even if the reciepts were slow in the mail getting back, the theatre was on top of our expenditures. I've even whipped out my computer and run the show CD for a performance once when our mini disk player kicked it and the venue couldn't find its CD player.
Had a company manager with a newer computer than mine be able to burn a new show CD anytime ours was getting worn out/scratched up too much. I have a database of every venue that I've been to, with notes for when I go back in the future. We've hooked our laptops up to hotel tvs for impromto movie nights.
I can go on and on. When I first started touring, I was the only one on the tour with a computer. Now, they all have computers. Tours come into my roadhouse, get a DSL line (from the building) and set up their own wireless network backstage. My boss tells me that tours would come in the past and need 6 or 8 phone lines. Now they only need one or two, plus the DSL line. That's partly the advent of cell phones as well as computers, but related. Anyway, a lot of info for a probable short mention 'they're handy on tour' but I hope it helps.
-Centaura