On Guard! The Story of SAGE (1956)

★★★★★ · SAGE - the largest computer ever built · srogers · 2003-02-04

Nicely done film that presents the importance of defense, and sells SAGE as the system to provide it. The film doesn't tell much about SAGE (probably classified at the time) but SAGE was the physically largest computer ever built occupying 2 floors of the SAGE building at IBM and requiring over 1 million watts of power. SAGE is an important system in the history of computing hardware.

★★★★ · High tech stuff from the early 50s · Medon Decker · 2003-01-27

This movie tells about the first computer based aerial surveillance system of the USA, which was realised by IBM in the early 50s. Also the 1st generation computer equipment of the famous B52s is shown. This film features some very interesting infos for computer freaks, the average viewer might get bored. Personally I found it very interesting that already at this time graphical computer displays existed. Ignore the usual patriotic stuff... or smile.

★★★★ · Keeping us safe from the red menace · JimT · 2003-02-16

Having been a 'SAGE cowboy' in the 1970's, this film was quite a nostalgia trigger. Some comments based on my personal experiences: One might think that the 'display scopes' are never shown with actual data on them for security reasons. In reality, it is more likely because the displays were too dim to film. The one shot that appears to show a display scope in action is actually a simulation -- it shows the data being updated about once per second. In reality, it took a full *thirty seconds* to draw all of the data for an air division, and the operator had to rely on the persistence of the…

★★★★ · Great Film for Computer Buffs · Rocketeer · 2003-05-11

SAGE, the semi-automatic ground environment, was the first iteration of the air defense systems that guard us to this day. A couple of key points about this film: First, it may be the first public illustration of the concept of the "black box," i.e., a self-contained, easily replaceable, electronic module. Even more interesting, to me, is that the computer on which you watch this film is thousands of times more powerful than the entire SAGE system. In fact, your computer is more powerful than all of the computers in the world combined, circa 1956. An interesting little film about the early…

★★★★ · I used to repair those things · jbellah · 2005-01-29

I was a computer repairman for the A/NFSQ-7, the IBM computer used in SAGE from 1965-1968 in Oregon. Boy, keeping those things running was a chore. This computer had over 56,000 electron tubes. This film brings back a lot of memories.