Dag Spicer from the Computer History Museum leaned over and unscrewed a deadbolt . Underneath , it record , “ I ca n’t stand it ” . The manipulator ’s job was to look for frigid war sub that never amount . I would go mad , too . Look :
The IBM SAGE speak to me . It was previous , but unlike other motorcar from the era , with rude punch interfaces , it had a GUI , a short gun , and hell , an ashtray . And a big yellow screen . The ashtray was so operators did n’t have to leave their posts for fag breaks . Spotting incoming planes from the Soviet Union was exact work that needed unceasing aid .
You see , after World War II , it was believe that bombers were invincible ; That their gamy altitude , distanced attacks from above and multiple engines would allow them to drop their deadly payloads and fly away without any resistance . It was believe that the only way to intercept these attack was by having plane in the air at all times , to discover them and directly react with force .
SAGE stood for Semi - machinelike Ground Environment and its sole purpose was to analyze radar data in real time and relay targeting information to fighter planes ’ autopilot . It was establish by IBM in 1954 based off of MIT technology and was a fore carrier of extra * amazing futuristic ideas * like magnetized substance memory , networking , and modems to facilitate communicating between the 27 cornerstone . Each of those base had a SAGE . And a backing that could be hot switch . The entire system had a then telling 99.6 % uptime in an age when most computers would bluster a vac thermionic tube at every day or so . The figurer ’s console table referred to a much large back end that was 300 tons and took up an entire floor of a usually faceless concrete building . The software was written by the Rand corporation because IBM did n’t sleep with what they ’d do with 2000 in house programmers after the task was done , something they admitted was a part of their historically out of pinch visual sensation of just how important programmers would eventually become to big blueing . The computer code itself was 250,000 lines long . Nothing compared to a modern operating arrangement on even your headphone , but it was the most complex of its time , utilise 20 % of the world ’s programming force at the time .
What ’s sad is that these glorious machines , even at their full and earliest warnings of incoming missiles , would only be inform the United States of the inevitable : there would n’t have been enough time to intercept a existent threat , says the Computer History Museum . Thank god for the capital wideness of the Pacific , the Atlantic , Canada and Mexico .
The SAGE was pull away in 1983 when ICBMs interpret them even more disused . But before then , adding shame to uselessness was the fact that in the end , the only seat to get SAGE replacement thermionic vacuum tube was from the Soviet Union itself . The industrial war machine is a complex and nonsensical thing . Sometimes that complex nonsensicality costs several billion taxpayer dollars .
[ Computer History Museum , Wikipedia ]
TheComputer History Museumis a wonderful place . If you ’re in northern CA , I recommend you feel a way to stop by . We ’ll be running piece from their ingathering as an on-going serial publication . particular thanks to Fiona Tang , John Hollar and the amazing Dag Spicer for showing me around .
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