Trained on SAGE ANFSQ7 at Keesler AFB Mississippi in 1962 and finish education at NYADS by IBM in 1963 in the maintenance of the central computer (we were known as CC or Central Computer techs). Started to learn COBOL while at McGuire for 3 years and set me up for a great career as a programmer/systems analyst and project manager. I owe the Air force a lot. Some of the best years of my life.
+Thomas Jordan My dad was a life-long IBMer. He at one point was involved with the NYADS group. He loved to tell this story about an inter-group competition within IBM, where cheering on your team was encouraged ("team-building" exorcizes were common at IBM in those days). So, obviously, their team cheer was: "Go NYADS!!!" :-)
@@johnhopkins6260 John , I too was sent to a 407L after tech school. I had been in Base Supply for 6 years and was cross trained. I was sent to Shaw AFB,SC , 507th TACCS , COMBAT OPERATION. Spend 2 years there and sent remote to Indian Mountain AFS ,AK and then back to Shaw AFB. 507th a year and moved to 9th AF , DOY as supervisor of TACS for all of the 407L equipment and enlisted personnel. I hated to be at a desk . So a slot opened at 7th ACCS , ABCCC flying EC-130E . So the last 10 year's I flew with them. Best job I ever had. Where did the 407L take you? Oh , for 14 years as a RADAR OPERATOR, I only sit at a RADAR SCOPE for one year.
@@donwat91 sent straight to USAFE TACS (TCF/TCS/TACP); filled the gap where the Brits were pulling out of northern FRG (2ATAF), and the Dutch were pulling out of their Hawk/Nike sites... never remote, little Stateside (except cross-training at Hurlburt and Pope...), babysat the Fahad line.
Those of us who served in the USAF in the '50s and '60s blazed the trail with the SAGE systems and computers. Those systems did move with less memory and speed than most of the stuff I see today. I served from 1961 to 1965 as an AN/FSQ-7 repairman at Truax AFS 4631st Support Sq. (30551 B1). We were ChADS, Chicago Air Defense Sector and we often tracked over 350 aircraft at any one time with less compute power and storage than found on my cell phone (it is not an Iphone). We blazed the trail which is still being followed today. Nothing I see today impresses me.
The AN/FSQ-7/8 SAGE computers were the most advanced computers in the world in their time. I am blessed to have been a part of this historic portal into digital computer technology. I was trained to install and maintain the system at the IBM Factory in Kingston, NY in 1961 and worked on the systems at Truax Field, Madison, WI until 1965. I owe my 50+ year career to SAGE computers. If you were not there you could never embrace the significance of what we were doing.
Thanks! It was an interesting experience! 56,000 vacuum tubes, 2500 miles of wire. The first modems and light guns and rotating magnetic drum memory. ☺
And as a nice side-effect of this project, it was discovered that multiple computers scattered around the country could be connected together to share information. SAGE was basically the first iteration of the Internet.
I wouldn't call it discovered. But yes, the TCP/IP was developed by DARPA to allow Command and Control communications without a single point of failure.
The Almaden air force base on Mt Umunhum in the Santa Cruz Mountians near San Jose, CA was a SAGE installation. The "cube" building that housed the radar and SAGE system still exists and sits vacant overlooking the valley.
The problem was, by the time SAGE was finished, ICBMs were out, and they were faster than SAGE could deal with. One thing that has returned from that era are radar that operate from 420 to 450 MHz, they can detect stealth aircraft.
Just because nuclear weapons found a new means of delivery didn't make SAGE any less important as a system for monitoring and evaluating air traffic across the continent. It operated for 24 years and surely formed the basis for future developments in NORAD, it was a colossal success.
Sage was not used to counter ICBMs, it was used to shoot Bombers out of the sky and automatically direct F-106 Delta Dart Interceptor Aircraft to Offset points to launch an attack.
I was a Computer Maintenance Crew Chief for the Q-7 at Ft. Lee VA in 80. When we would watch the war games on the maintenance consoles, I would joke that if the balloon went up, we would not be around to intercept Bombers. I imagine we were targeted by at least a couple of Soviet missile warheads.
From what I know, until 1983, SAGE was operational until a more modern follow on system was put into place. Amazing that vacuum tubes saved our lives until then.
I was a SAGE Intercept Director in the 70's. Odd thing is that by then we bought a lot of our tubes from eastern Europe because they were no longer made in the United States.
@@garyodle5663 I find it amazing in 2024 they are still available. JJ Electronic, based in the Slovak Republic. I ordered from them a couple of years ago while restoring an old radio. There isn't a huge demand of tubes, but world wide there is just enough demand to keep two manufactures going.
Trained at Keesler in 1962 and was assigned to the Los Angeles ADS in 1963-66. Worked the ID section after the basic track monitor duties and a stint in the radio room listening to Russian trawler chatter trying to mess with our B-52s. I think I could still operate one of those consoles after about a week of retraining. Tom REY, A1C
I was a maintenance man on the SAGE computer system at 24th NORAD Region, Malmstrom AFB, MT in the early 70s. It was an amazing piece of equipment for its day.
Did you ever write about that time? I mean, the story from your point of view? It could be an interesting article. Btw. today, those vacuum tubes would be most likely invaluable for audio enthusiasts. They were of very high quality and a computer like that would have thousands of spare parts. (For an amplifier, you just need a few VTs).
***** At the time did you imagine that computers would be consumer devices with widespread usages? What kind of education did you have to complete to work on these systems. I have some many questions for you... I'm in Oregon - where was this happening. I want to see the buildings!
I was the last radio repair tech at the 24th when we shut it down in 1983. I maintained the TDDL equipment, and worked in the computer repair lab as well. It was quite the place. :)
I recently visited with a former coworker who was a Maintenance Superintendent when I was there. He now lives in Alamogordo, NM. He and another fellow I know where still in Great Falls when they shut down the system and they were asked to come and "flip the switch" that shut down the computer. One of the guys there was able to snag a few souvenirs and he send me a piece of the core memory that was in that system. I still have that core memory in my office.
Are you talking about the "Pluggable Unit Lab" on the second floor, where they repaired the Pluggable Units that were pulled by the Computer Maintenance folks? That's where I worked when I first arrived at 24th but then after a year, I moved down to the main computer and eventually became qualified in every area (Displays, I/O, Central Computer, Memory, CEP, etc). I was there for almost 7 years and left min-1979.
Given the historic timeframe of this Air Force film, one would expect much more cigarette smoking. Cigarettes and bad coffee were dietary staples in SAC.
When I went through tech school at Keesler in 1977, all we got were stories about the SAGE, including the dire consequences should the air conditioning ever go out (heat from the vacuum tubes would kill everybody in the building and start to melt the racks, etc). We did train on the BUIC (Back-Up Interceptor Control), a Burroughs transistor system, which had been intended to supplement and replace the SAGE. The BUIC just could not process as much data as the SAGE and was itself phased out. I ended up working on the SACCS data communication system, AKA "the two-ton telephone".
I was told the Entire blockhouse was never heated only cooled. All of the consoles used also put out a ton of heat also. I worked on both the Q-7 at Ft. Lee and the BUIC at Tyndall AFB. In 80 I went to training at Hughes Defense in Fullerton CA on the Joint Surveillance system that was finally going to replace the Q-7. We were the first group to be trained on the JSS. The first site was going to be located at Tyndall. The project was behind schedule so when I got to Tyndall I was assigned to the BUIC system until the JSS facility was ready. I never got to work on the JSS since I had to get a humanitarian reassignment back to England in my Primary AFSC of Fire Protection.
I was in the USAF 64-68. I was trained on repairing radar and GATR (Ground, air, transmitters, receivers). All were using tube technology. There was no satellite communication then, and most communication involved "troposcatter", a medium range (500 - 1500 miles) communication system. Was all hooked into NORAD and SAGE. A lot of these systems are replaced by newer systems I would suspect. As this document describes, the "scope dope" places a cursor on a target, sends a signal (azimuth and other info) to a height finder radar, then they press a button, and the elevation is stored in the computers. All were using a data connection which is slow by todays standards. I was also in Tech School at Keesler AFB, the main USAF electronic school. At that time, there was a lot of VietNamese Air force students being trained as well.
How little you know. SAGE was active from 1950, 62 years ago, up to sometime in the 1980's. Tracks came up as Friendly or Unknown, then the ID section determined whether they were Friendly and not squawking the right code, or Hostile. It was quite an advancement at the time, and was the driving force for todays' laptops and iPhones. The Military systems are often the basis for new development which benefits the public.
In a way, yes. These were cathode ray tubes and the picture was drawn by sweeping an electronbeam over the screen. When a point on the screen is struck it will light up and then slowly fade. On todays PC CRT screens you often see a brighter or dimmer horizontal bar moving over the screen. This is because the camera will rapidly take individul pictures and on these the lighting and fading can be seen. Also, the rate of the diplay and the camera may not be synchronised.
The SAGE building at Beale AFB is humongous. Amazing to realize that all of the computing power in the building is about equal to an IPAD. The whole thing was connected with 300 baud modems and a zillion phone lines.
An iPad hardly has the capability to handle the mass of incoming data. It's not just about the MIPS. ... On the other hand, they _were_ using vacuum tubes.
@@Forensource Read my comment.. an iPad has nowhere near the I/O capacity of a 60's mainframe. Speed is less important than getting data in and out of the machine quickly and to the right task. Comparing a mainframe to a modern PC/tablet is apples and oranges.
Its amazing what they were able to do with such weak computing power. It still amazes me in the form of space equipment now. We use cpu's in space that are from the 90's, yet they use them so efficiently that they can go to Mars and drive around, etc.
All of these old films are very cool. Too bad they don’t get into the lower level details of how these systems worked, from an engineering perspective. Most of these films are propaganda.
Well, that was all classified data at the time. There is a Book out called "AN/FSQ-7: the computer that shaped the Cold War" It is completely about the engineering and design.
Notice the 'guns' the operators are holding to the screen? When the part of the screen under it lights up these will send a signal to the computer. the computer knows what it was drawing at that moment so it will know where the gun is on the screen. In this way the operator can 'click' on something.
Luke AFB has a major Fighter Wing and SAGE center is close to Phoenix, AZ, it being a major metropolitan area needed the many jobs that these systems required both military and civilian jobs still drive DoD spending today
I was an ECCM tech, we were a small group charged with frontline data analysis and control at long range radar sites since extraneous data could overload the memory cores of the Q-7. We were also responsible for overseeing that the systems were functioning within established parameters such as alignment with a permanent echo, power output, system noise levels and frequency drift on klystron-based systems just to mention a few. We were also responsible for data transfers to BUIC sites when level 2 operation was ordered by the direction center.
I saw the SAGE building at Topsham in 1974. It was out of use at that time, of course. I was a Navy Radioman Second Class and amateur radio operator totally enthralled by the blockhouse the USAF had left behind at Topsham. I lived in a Barrack at Topsham and worked at the Navy communication center at NAS Brunswick, now closed. I would love to know more about the vacuum tubes used in the SAGE computer system. You were fortunate to have worked with that equipment, yes?
Maybe you can call it fortunate but didn't feel that way to us at the time! We at CC (Central Computer changed out more plugable units that either the display or I/O people so we kept them busy in the repair lab. Some idiot even suggested we wear roller skates to get the plug-in modules but turned out to be too dangerous because a low of guys couldn't skate very well. @@jazz4asahel
Each systen had 64k of 36 bit words of memory and another 256k was added. Not even as much as a digital watch much less a cell phone. GOD bless the designers of that system! At times I am ashamed at where personal compters are today and would give up my life to have them disappear!
Really insightful comment. Brilliant in its abject ignorance. Lots of that here. SAGE and the FSQ-7 computer programmed pioneered numerous technologies you rely on today. Like the phone another commenter is so proud of. The computer was the first mass produced computer ever. The first touch screen displays were pioneered in SAGE. In fact, IBM took the work they did for SAGE and produced the IBM 360, the first widely used business computer. In fact, defense has led to many commercial spinoffs.
Its amazing, without radars we would not have transistors, without transistors would not have computers. The massive room computer in this video is still using vacuum tubes I think.
There was a seperate room for the actual computers and a common room for both maintenance consoles. I'll never forget the speaker squacking as the processor worked. We got so we tuned it out of our hearing but when it stopped we new instantly the active computer stoppes working. Great experience and gave me great headstart on learning to programin COBOL from the civiian contractors! The claxton horn that went off wnetever they syitched generators cost me my hearing but it was worth it. (darned thing was about 10 foot behind ne while I was working at one of the consoles.
We went to the moon with a DSKY computer with hard wired memory and total of 74 KB. There is one at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville Oregon
It took 15 seconds for that system to process all the data. with aircraft moving at high speed including Mach the location of aircraft were behind where they actually were. During training missions with a lot of aircraft involved, frame time could get as high as 30 seconds and higher. So the aircraft display on the radar scope would be way off from where they actually were. I was at the 26th Air Division/NORAD Region-Luke AFB. from 1976 thru 1980, worked in weapons control. The whole system was done away with in the early 1980's and replaced with new off the shelf computers and the old systems SAGE were scraped out around 1983.
Did the computer screens really flash that slow (tube computers were clocked in kHz, not MHz), or is this a filming artefact? I know that CRT vector monitors (also arcade videogames etc.) are definitely the hardest task to film flickerfree because they had no constant frame rate. This film reel deserves to be re-digitized in modern resolution.
@selahia The outright usefulness of this system never had a chance to be proven out as the cold war never went hot. However, the advances in technology this project wrought out have been wildly successful. Often times it takes a large and wealthy nation to innovate in a totally unknown field. In the beginning there was no market for these machines. It took the military to prove just how useful computers could be. What advances in technology has your nation driven forward?
@@TheUglyGnome They were magnetic drums. Some were used to buffer the data rates between the CPU and the slower display systems. Read one word, skip 5, etc.
I wonder what they did with all that old hardware/ sell it on the surplus market or just scrap them? Or they could be sitting in a governent warehouse someplace with Indiana Jones Ark.
A lot of it ended up as movie props, and some real impressive ones at that. From Lost In Space. Get Smart. Fantastic Voyage. In Like Flint. The Towering Inferno and The Six Million Dollar Man to Independence Day (plus a whole raft more).
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo acquired one, and was still using it when I left in 1989. The vacuum tube, gylcol cooled room heater was reliable, easy to repair on the fly, a good machine for teaching students to program computers. However, the electrical costs to operate, the diminishing available parts and the introduction of pc's to student, reduced the desire by university administration to keep it. The CDC tech told me that other like computers were being sold to foreign governments and institutions in third world. But, I suspect by the mid 1990's, even those would be scrapped. I once saw a computer graveyard at Midway Atoll and another in Alaska, where the computers were piled. The federal agency that I worked for , came up with a cradle to grave policy, when they wanted to kill your project, but bought new computers every year, whether you needed it or not.
True, my father was FAA liaison to NORAD from 64-94,he worked in several SAGE facilities before NORAD HQ. I have a framed photo of a Russian Bear being escorted by F-15's out of Langley. They would fly up from Cuba along the east coast to Russia...
Too bad you don't even hear about them any more. Once so powerful and one stupid mistake allowing MicroSoft to copy the operating system cost them so much!
I was a scope dope at the 4634th Sage Support Squadron, READS, Reno Air Defense Sector from 1963-1966 when sage was closed down at Stead AFB just north of Reno, NV. I wish I could attach a KMZ file I made that shows all the Sage Direction Centers using Google Earth. Was on A crew and worked tracking, OT, and manual inputs. Those were the days.
Everything you see in the movie was true. As I was stationed at the Washington Air Defense Sector (WADS) 1961 to 1962. Long after SAGE was disbanded I saw some of the displays being used in Hollywood sifi movies.
If you drive by the airport on Highway 53 in Duluth, Minnesota you'll see a large mostly windowless building housing the Natural Resources Research Institute. It used to be a SAGE center.
I'd love to build a music synthesizer with fluidics. These circuits scream for becoming 3D printed. In 1960th fluidics was thought to replace electronics for making cheap mass produced computers! Apparently it got mainly used by soviets. ruclips.net/video/01iiZEOwPqM/видео.html It was too slow and big to compete with microchips, despite this cheap cybernetic technology could control household devices like washing machines by water (or air) pushed through a simple moulded piece of plastic. The only household item with success were Tomy water games. Nowadays fluidics is only used in chemical testing machines to mix and move small substance droplets around.
@@cyberyogicowindler2448 Was thinking if Babbage had this tech the Pipe Organ folks could have built his computer and Lady Ada could have invented COBOL . Cool huh? If you have an address I could sent what I have on this idea.
@@cyberyogicowindler2448 This nice lady Fran talked up my info. pack on the FLODAC. you can see it at 8:15 ruclips.net/video/5qgxsJp8MZk/видео.html . 3D printing up a FLODAC to calculate log tables would be kinda hip.
"One of the most dangerous threats to our nation's security is the possibility of attack by enemy bombers..." _(shows clip of a squadron of B-52 bombers)_
from what heard they were low refresh screens (long phosphor persistence) this is probably because the system couldn't constantly refresh the screens since it was busy computing.
Yes they did. TV CRT's used a Raster scan which refreshed the screen between 25 and 29 times a second (the later is the US standard). The radar PPI (Plan Position Indicator) CRT on the other hand used a system that took the bearing of the radar antenna and used it to produce two pairs of Sawtooth waveforms which pushed /pulled the electron beam across the screen for the Raw radar video. The typical Air Defence radar for the time transmitted 250 large pluses of radio energy (1 megawatt or more) for around 5 microseconds. The Radar then listened for around 3000 microseconds for any echos. This gave the radar a maximum range of around 250 miles. While the radar was transmitting it was also turning at around 6 RPM, giving one 360 scan every 10 seconds or so. The radar's bearing was taken by data sensors and that controlled the maximum amplitude of the sawtooth wave patten, while its duration equaled the listening time of the radar with the start of the slope being synchronized to the time at which the radar started listening and the electron beam being at the center of the tube (know as X (North / South) and Y (East / West). The saw tooth waveform was fed to deflection coils around the neck of the CRT and would move the beam in a line equal to the direction of the radar antenna at the rate that the radio signal would take to go out to 250 miles and back If the beam was allowed to on all the time it would draw a solid line from the center of the screen to the edge which would turn at 6 RPM. This was used on some systems in a video map system which would scan a slide with a map on it and display it the signal picked up by a photoelectric cell on the CRT at the same time as the radar data. In the case of the PPI console though, the electron beam would only be allow to reach the phosphor if there was a radar return (or signal from the video map unit). Now 3005 microseconds x 250 equals about 0.75 seconds and the radar needed a short period to sort itself out before transmitting the next pulse of radio energy. During this 1 millisecond period (known as the intertrace) x 250 times a second the display wasn't doing anything and this allowed the computer to generate various graphics on the screen by putting various sawtooth and squarewave signals on the deflection coils and allowing a bright up pulse to the electron beam to show them on the screen. This allowed lines and circles to be drawn very much like vector graphics in Coraldraw. The rest of the symbols, letters, numbers and other data were most likely not generated by the computer bar what data was needed to be displayed and its position. This was fed to a system that fired a number of devices called Monoscopes that were basically like a video map but used its own scanning system to electronically scan a plate with a symbol on it to produce the required small X and y deflection signals, plus an electron beam bright up signal to draw that symbol on the CRT. The actual position of the symbol on the CRT being based around a bigger X and Y deflection squarewave generated by the computer. The computer could not draw all of this information on the CRT every intra trace but did it over about 20 to 25 of them and then started again, The reason for this is the Human eye refreshes its view of the world around 7 times a second and any screen refresh lower than 9 times a second will cause the screen to flicker, like on the film. The reason for the flicker on the film is due to two reasons, firstly the film does not have an exposure capability anywhere like that of the human eye and secondly its frame rate is 24 frames a second. Therefore the CRT display will strobe with the film in the camara and not show what was actually on the display.
Richard Vernon I actually found some manuals on the AN/FSQ-7 and the display system on the net, and apparently it used a type of picture tube that has a character matrix that would shine an unfocused beam into the matrix, shining out the character or pictograph (called a typotron, I believe) And it was deflected back to the center of the tube to later be deflected again to the screen. This way the computer didn't have to commit more time to vector draw images. Of cause I don't know EVERYTHING about it because I just looked a the diagrams instead of reading all the text :/ If you want to see said manuals I can send you the bitsavers link.
That is an artifact of the filming process. They used vector graphics in which the electron beam would be blanked, moved to a starting point, then turned on and moved to draw a symbol or a line. The light gun (their version of a mouse) would detect when the symbol it was on was being refreshed and the console would associate that with screen coordinates and hence the symbol being selected. Filming captures an image at least 25 to 30 times per second in order to simulate motion (then display each image twice at a 60 Hz rate to eliminate flicker -- same thing with raster scan TVs). So sometimes the camera caught the displays when they were refreshing, but more often not. BTW, when you see airplane propellers "reverse direction" in a movie, that is also an artifact of the filming process called "aliasing".
Today it works similar, displays are updated only on set moments but instead of this system which clearly shows that, today it is done 60 times per second or even up to 144 times per second, making it impossible to notice with the naked eye.
Reminds me of the 1960s Ken Russell film "The Billion Dollar Brain" (Len Deighton). also, in the early 1980s cards and reel-to-reel were still in use to regulate machinery in a steel mill where I worked.
Sad the RCAF used to provide about 1/3 of the interceptor for NORAD with day, night and all weather jets. Also had Bomarc Missiles some nuclear tipped and some interceptors were armed with nuclear tipped Genie air to air missiles. Today we are lucky if the ancient CF-18 makes it off the runway without breaking down. Best pilots oldest dwindling fighters
+Art Wright How accurate was the film in depicting the refresh rates of the radar CRTs? It looked like vector redraw/refresh rates were on the order of 0.75 to 1.0 seconds per update.
The birth of the internet people. Remember: however cool your cellphone may be, your government has bigger, better, more terrifying stuff. Computers and atomic war, both products of WW2, advanced together.
Great vid. "Here's your multi billion dollar nuclear and conventional weapons system. But the really HARD part is to know out what it's doing. For that we'll need a compUTer."
+Isaac Adam Most likely it's been completely replaced by a different system. When I was in the AF in '84, our SAGE director site was used for a lot of other purposes, because it was this huge concrete block to support massive computers that had been by then completely replaced with smaller and more powerful systems. The actual SAGE functions were confined to a single floor; the rest of the building was essentially taken over to be the base HQ offices. Routine electronics updates are commonplace in the Air Force - typical government inefficiency notwithstanding. The base I was at was decommissioned; the director site along with it.
+Isaac Adam I believe that the US has multiple redundant sets of capabilities in 2016 that far exceed 3x the full capability of SAGE, which as this video description points out was only used until the early 1980s. Parts of the SAGE system influenced the design of the SABRE system which although redesigned several times, is still an active important civilian aerospace technology even today. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_(computer_system)
@camposantoo The German system of WW II was similar to the British system. Both of these used GCI or Ground Controlled Intercept. There was a similar system in Germany but this was not implemented until the 1970's. NADGE or NATO Air Defence Ground Environment. One of their SOC's was in the 'Kindsbach Cave' which is described elsewhere. You can read a lot about the RAF systems and especially their approach to defeating the German Air Defense systems at the RAF Historical Society.
The two I worked in, Duluth, MN and Corvallis, OR are still there. I visited the Corvallis site last year. It's used by several companies. The Duluth building is visible in Google Earth pictures.
@SpecialEdAllstar You think that the Soviets never tested this system. They made thousands of 'penetration runs' with manned bombers, most notably the TU-95 Bear. They also deployed their famous fleet of 'fishing boats' around our shores. The best fishing was usually near a NORAD radar station like CFS Holberg on Norhern Vancouver Island. Prime fishing time was during SAC/NORAD joint exercises.
Must have because when testing the communications they forgot to have our switch at one site turned to feedback loop and the BOMARC missles rose out of their underground hide outs and our brave airment mostly abandoned the site! Their were 18 hanging on a pickup speeding down the exit road when stopped by an officer comming to inspect thair site! Funny as heck for us in the CC but some real trouble for those hanging onto the pickup truck!
To put this into perspective ... Year Producer/Product Calculating power Price 1953 MIT Whirlwind II 0.00015 MIPS for 1,063,197 US$ 2014 Intel Core i7 5960X 336,000.00000 MIPS for 1,049 US$ that's 2.24 billions times the calculating power at 0,0987 percent of the costs. (Not inflation costs adjusted / jcmit.net/cpu-performance.htm)
I'm guessing this was originally in color. If so, this film is badly degraded. Surprising, as one would expect quality film stock and storage from the DoD. The detailed descriptions here are not kept secret from the enemy. Interesting attitude towards the perceived enemy. "We know you can't duplicate this. Look on and despair."
this has more a feel of an internal educational film than anything supposed to be viewed by an international public audience. And while scientists and technicians were maybe in the habit of recording their experiments on high quality film stocks to accommodate detailed analysis, these educational reels were most likely considered to have a fairly short life-span. Existing only for a short while during its educational value. Therefore a cheaper medium was likely chosen. Also. What we are watching now is probably a cheap 16mm distribution copy. Not exactly meant to stand the test of time. Even hollywood productions of the era have had problems preserving full color archival prints. Most degrading into single-tone browns. The ones that survive the best are those that got a 3 strip monochrome technicolor separation archival treatment. So on the contrary I am not exactly surprised that this copy is in this poor shape.
+Harry Ohrt Actually the idea was to make the soviets think that a first attack on the US was unfeasible. So, while I think that this video was training material, there was a certain amount of public advertising about the system, as a deterrent against the soviets having funny ideas. And basically, considering there was not a III World War, it looks like it worked.
@ironbear Nothing would've been different. The current ATC system in the US is descended from the SAGE system. The 9/11 attacks used civilian aircraft. 9/11 wasn't a failure in ability to track aircraft. Your comment is meaningless unless it's your assertion that any civilian aircraft that deviates from its registered flight plan for any reason should be blown out of the sky. If that IS what you're claiming, then I hope you don't work for the FAA or the Air Force.
@blueblob4 In all likelihood, a solar powered calculator that you can buy in a blister pack at the drug store for $.99 has faster numerical computing power than an AN/FSQ-7. As far as actual capability, it's probably not quite as powerful as a Commodore 64. The computer you're reading this comment on almost certainly has an order of magnitude more computing power than the entire SAGE network combined, and more than every computer on the planet combined when this video was made.
@RavenRof R/SAOC was updated by General Dynamics in the 1990s. Remember that the computing power needed is not very large and they have been at it for sixty years. I would expect to see this sort of application in a private, secure cloud some day. Distributed, redundant systems with lots of connectivity to weapons like F-22, F-35, AWACS, AEGIS, the White-house X-Box 360, Obama's iPhone. There's an app for that!
And in future coming generation people will need to defend their houses against attacking microbots and nanobots, so every building may need its own malbot defense as a technical immune system more complex than SAGE with ant-sized defense robots to survive the age before Grey Goo.
that is not a measure of performance any where but within the same chip... The best cross chips reference would be IPS or OPS, but are not perfect as well, as what is done within 2 operation in one arch could be done within 1 in another...
They weren't nuclear bombs in reality, although they did have the option. If an interceptor couldn't drive the intruder out of our airspace, they had conventional weapons with which to shoot down an enemy aircraft. Fortunately, this never happened, as the Russians were just testing our defenses,and we always responded. That's why that era was known as the 'Cold War.'
Baloney. What's your source of expertise? I repaired the SAGE system and it wasn't obsolete against ICBM's at all. Missiles were not too fast at all for the system to track. Your remark is pure ignorance. The reason it became obsolete was that a better and faster system was developed at Cheyenee Mountain.
@persevere67 Actualy your GSM phone would beat it, but that isnt the point. These are the father of the very ideas of computing. Before there we're even specs tht you now compare.
![I.N "HALLUCINATION" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/n5B5q1Hwt_U/mqdefault.jpg)
Trained on SAGE ANFSQ7 at Keesler AFB Mississippi in 1962 and finish education at NYADS by IBM in 1963 in the maintenance of the central computer (we were known as CC or Central Computer techs). Started to learn COBOL while at McGuire for 3 years and set me up for a great career as a programmer/systems analyst and project manager. I owe the Air force a lot.
Some of the best years of my life.
+Thomas Jordan My dad was a life-long IBMer. He at one point was involved with the NYADS group. He loved to tell this story about an inter-group competition within IBM, where cheering on your team was encouraged ("team-building" exorcizes were common at IBM in those days). So, obviously, their team cheer was:
"Go NYADS!!!" :-)
wow, flashbacks from Keesler (never forgot the cockroaches) (1977)... moved on to 407L Mobile TACS
Is there a way to compare the computing power of the SAGE system to todays devices?
@@johnhopkins6260 John , I too was sent to a 407L after tech school. I had been in Base Supply for 6 years and was cross trained. I was sent to Shaw AFB,SC , 507th TACCS , COMBAT OPERATION. Spend 2 years there and sent remote to Indian Mountain AFS ,AK and then back to Shaw AFB. 507th a year and moved to 9th AF , DOY as supervisor of TACS for all of the 407L equipment and enlisted personnel. I hated to be at a desk . So a slot opened at 7th ACCS , ABCCC flying EC-130E . So the last 10 year's I flew with them. Best job I ever had. Where did the 407L take you? Oh , for 14 years as a RADAR OPERATOR, I only sit at a RADAR SCOPE for one year.
@@donwat91 sent straight to USAFE TACS (TCF/TCS/TACP); filled the gap where the Brits were pulling out of northern FRG (2ATAF), and the Dutch were pulling out of their Hawk/Nike sites... never remote, little Stateside (except cross-training at Hurlburt and Pope...), babysat the Fahad line.
Those of us who served in the USAF in the '50s and '60s blazed the trail with the SAGE systems and computers. Those systems did move with less memory and speed than most of the stuff I see today. I served from 1961 to 1965 as an AN/FSQ-7 repairman at Truax AFS 4631st Support Sq. (30551 B1). We were ChADS, Chicago Air Defense Sector and we often tracked over 350 aircraft at any one time with less compute power and storage than found on my cell phone (it is not an Iphone). We blazed the trail which is still being followed today. Nothing I see today impresses me.
The AN/FSQ-7/8 SAGE computers were the most advanced computers in the world in their time. I am blessed to have been a part of this historic portal into digital computer technology.
I was trained to install and maintain the system at the IBM Factory in Kingston, NY in 1961 and worked on the systems at Truax Field, Madison, WI until 1965.
I owe my 50+ year career to SAGE computers. If you were not there you could never embrace the significance of what we were doing.
Jim Bailey Thats awesome!
Thanks! It was an interesting experience! 56,000 vacuum tubes, 2500 miles of wire. The first modems and light guns and rotating magnetic drum memory. ☺
Jim Bailey wow! That's insane lol, I can't imagine even seeing that inperson let alone doing anything with it.
Jim Bailey This pice of shit will be nuked to the ground by soviet ICBM
Thanks, soviet9992!
I trained at Keesler in 1981-82 and was at the 25 ADS for two years. What an amazing education that was, indescribable.
Me too: Keesler, '82-'83 .. EW school .. 328X3 .. Allie Hall .. Hewes Hall .. tubes, transistors, ICs, klystrons, magnetrons, twts, chaff, TXs, RXs, TRXs, .. remember ?
Keesler 72-73 - Ended up at 24th ADS.
And as a nice side-effect of this project, it was discovered that multiple computers scattered around the country could be connected together to share information. SAGE was basically the first iteration of the Internet.
I wouldn't call it discovered. But yes, the TCP/IP was developed by DARPA to allow Command and Control communications without a single point of failure.
The Almaden air force base on Mt Umunhum in the Santa Cruz Mountians near San Jose, CA was a SAGE installation. The "cube" building that housed the radar and SAGE system still exists and sits vacant overlooking the valley.
The problem was, by the time SAGE was finished, ICBMs were out, and they were faster than SAGE could deal with.
One thing that has returned from that era are radar that operate from 420 to 450 MHz, they can detect stealth aircraft.
Just because nuclear weapons found a new means of delivery didn't make SAGE any less important as a system for monitoring and evaluating air traffic across the continent. It operated for 24 years and surely formed the basis for future developments in NORAD, it was a colossal success.
Sage was not used to counter ICBMs, it was used to shoot Bombers out of the sky and automatically direct F-106 Delta Dart Interceptor Aircraft to Offset points to launch an attack.
I was a Computer Maintenance Crew Chief for the Q-7 at Ft. Lee VA in 80. When we would watch the war games on the maintenance consoles, I would joke that if the balloon went up, we would not be around to intercept Bombers. I imagine we were targeted by at least a couple of Soviet missile warheads.
From what I know, until 1983, SAGE was operational until a more modern follow on system was put into place. Amazing that vacuum tubes saved our lives until then.
I was a SAGE Intercept Director in the 70's. Odd thing is that by then we bought a lot of our tubes from eastern Europe because they were no longer made in the United States.
@@garyodle5663 I find it amazing in 2024 they are still available. JJ Electronic, based in the Slovak Republic. I ordered from them a couple of years ago while restoring an old radio. There isn't a huge demand of tubes, but world wide there is just enough demand to keep two manufactures going.
Trained at Keesler in 1962 and was assigned to the Los Angeles ADS in 1963-66. Worked the ID section after the basic track monitor duties and a stint in the radio room listening to Russian trawler chatter trying to mess with our B-52s. I think I could still operate one of those consoles after about a week of retraining. Tom REY, A1C
I was a maintenance man on the SAGE computer system at 24th NORAD Region, Malmstrom AFB, MT in the early 70s. It was an amazing piece of equipment for its day.
Did you ever write about that time? I mean, the story from your point of view? It could be an interesting article.
Btw. today, those vacuum tubes would be most likely invaluable for audio enthusiasts. They were of very high quality and a computer like that would have thousands of spare parts. (For an amplifier, you just need a few VTs).
***** At the time did you imagine that computers would be consumer devices with widespread usages? What kind of education did you have to complete to work on these systems. I have some many questions for you... I'm in Oregon - where was this happening. I want to see the buildings!
I was the last radio repair tech at the 24th when we shut it down in 1983. I maintained the TDDL equipment, and worked in the computer repair lab as well. It was quite the place. :)
I recently visited with a former coworker who was a Maintenance Superintendent when I was there. He now lives in Alamogordo, NM. He and another fellow I know where still in Great Falls when they shut down the system and they were asked to come and "flip the switch" that shut down the computer. One of the guys there was able to snag a few souvenirs and he send me a piece of the core memory that was in that system. I still have that core memory in my office.
Are you talking about the "Pluggable Unit Lab" on the second floor, where they repaired the Pluggable Units that were pulled by the Computer Maintenance folks? That's where I worked when I first arrived at 24th but then after a year, I moved down to the main computer and eventually became qualified in every area (Displays, I/O, Central Computer, Memory, CEP, etc). I was there for almost 7 years and left min-1979.
I was a Weapons Tech at the Hancock Field blockhouse. Also a Faker Monitor Tech. 1978-1981.
The building is still standing. Adair Village. Next to Hwy 99.
Google Maps: 44.670955, -123.219812
Given the historic timeframe of this Air Force film, one would expect much more cigarette smoking. Cigarettes and bad coffee were dietary staples in SAC.
As they were at a SAGE.
They should have been addicts of *sage* tea. ;-)
my grandfather said he smoked 3 packs a day when he worked there.
The SAGE terminals actually included an ashtray. One of the things I don't miss about the past.
What I liked the most is the GUI.
The screens could draw fine lines as well as letters and one could point at things.
And the remote communications led the way to remote computing and the internet.
When I went through tech school at Keesler in 1977, all we got were stories about the SAGE, including the dire consequences should the air conditioning ever go out (heat from the vacuum tubes would kill everybody in the building and start to melt the racks, etc). We did train on the BUIC (Back-Up Interceptor Control), a Burroughs transistor system, which had been intended to supplement and replace the SAGE. The BUIC just could not process as much data as the SAGE and was itself phased out. I ended up working on the SACCS data communication system, AKA "the two-ton telephone".
I was told the Entire blockhouse was never heated only cooled. All of the consoles used also put out a ton of heat also. I worked on both the Q-7 at Ft. Lee and the BUIC at Tyndall AFB. In 80 I went to training at Hughes Defense in Fullerton CA on the Joint Surveillance system that was finally going to replace the Q-7. We were the first group to be trained on the JSS. The first site was going to be located at Tyndall. The project was behind schedule so when I got to Tyndall I was assigned to the BUIC system until the JSS facility was ready. I never got to work on the JSS since I had to get a humanitarian reassignment back to England in my Primary AFSC of Fire Protection.
My Dad was with IBM from 1958-1994 and worked on the SAGE System.
Where was he stationed? 63-66I was at NYADS at Mcguire AFB covering the NY secror. The way things are going now thats not much to brage about.
Did anyone notice the alarm sound is a kid beating broken swing set pipe on the ground @16:33?
I was in the USAF 64-68. I was trained on repairing radar and GATR (Ground, air, transmitters, receivers). All were using tube technology. There was no satellite communication then, and most communication involved "troposcatter", a medium range (500 - 1500 miles) communication system. Was all hooked into NORAD and SAGE. A lot of these systems are replaced by newer systems I would suspect. As this document describes, the "scope dope" places a cursor on a target, sends a signal (azimuth and other info) to a height finder radar, then they press a button, and the elevation is stored in the computers. All were using a data connection which is slow by todays standards. I was also in Tech School at Keesler AFB, the main USAF electronic school. At that time, there was a lot of VietNamese Air force students being trained as well.
How little you know. SAGE was active from 1950, 62 years ago, up to sometime in the 1980's. Tracks came up as Friendly or Unknown, then the ID section determined whether they were Friendly and not squawking the right code, or Hostile. It was quite an advancement at the time, and was the driving force for todays' laptops and iPhones. The Military systems are often the basis for new development which benefits the public.
In a way, yes.
These were cathode ray tubes and the picture was drawn by sweeping an electronbeam over the screen.
When a point on the screen is struck it will light up and then slowly fade.
On todays PC CRT screens you often see a brighter or dimmer horizontal bar moving over the screen.
This is because the camera will rapidly take individul pictures and on these the lighting and fading can be seen.
Also, the rate of the diplay and the camera may not be synchronised.
The SAGE building at Beale AFB is humongous. Amazing to realize that all of the computing power in the building is about equal to an IPAD. The whole thing was connected with 300 baud modems and a zillion phone lines.
Forensource An IPad probably exceeds it in power by a large margin. You could create apps to do all of this.
An iPad hardly has the capability to handle the mass of incoming data. It's not just about the MIPS.
... On the other hand, they _were_ using vacuum tubes.
An ipad has nowhere near the IO capacity of a typical 60's mainframe, let alone the entire SAGE nework.
@@activelow9297 The SAGE in that building was two AN/FSQ-7 in tandem.
How fast was an AN/FSQ-7 in 1960
compared to an IPAD in 2022?
Humf.
@@Forensource Read my comment.. an iPad has nowhere near the I/O capacity of a 60's mainframe. Speed is less important than getting data in and out of the machine quickly and to the right task. Comparing a mainframe to a modern PC/tablet is apples and oranges.
Its amazing what they were able to do with such weak computing power. It still amazes me in the form of space equipment now. We use cpu's in space that are from the 90's, yet they use them so efficiently that they can go to Mars and drive around, etc.
One of the few good things to come out of Cold War fearmongers. The SAGE Display system would influece the inventors of the GUI for computers.
The Army Nike missile system had its own mini-SAGE system known variously as Missile Master, Missile Mentor, or BIRDIE.
All of these old films are very cool. Too bad they don’t get into the lower level details of how these systems worked, from an engineering perspective. Most of these films are propaganda.
Yeah they should,ve atleast mention that those workers used a light pen to mark suspecting targets and other things.
Well, that was all classified data at the time. There is a Book out called "AN/FSQ-7: the computer that shaped the Cold War" It is completely about the engineering and design.
these old videos are amazing and full of details !
Notice the 'guns' the operators are holding to the screen?
When the part of the screen under it lights up these will send a signal to the computer.
the computer knows what it was drawing at that moment so it will know where the gun is on the screen.
In this way the operator can 'click' on something.
Look at the map at 5:25 and afterward. Notice the largef white dot over Arizona. Is that at the Ft. Hauchuca Army base? Just curious.
Luke AFB has a major Fighter Wing and SAGE center is close to Phoenix, AZ, it being a major metropolitan area needed the many jobs that these systems required both military and civilian jobs still drive DoD spending today
I was an ECCM tech, we were a small group charged with frontline data analysis and control at long range radar sites since extraneous data could overload the memory cores of the Q-7. We were also responsible for overseeing that the systems were functioning within established parameters such as alignment with a permanent echo, power output, system noise levels and frequency drift on klystron-based systems just to mention a few. We were also responsible for data transfers to BUIC sites when level 2 operation was ordered by the direction center.
@Computer History Museum:
@ 0:09 the date is hard to read. What year does that say?
I worked in the Air Force at the SAGE DC in Topsham, Maine 62-66. If you look at an satellite view now it is all gone.
I saw the SAGE building at Topsham in 1974. It was out of use at that time, of course. I was a Navy Radioman Second Class and amateur radio operator totally enthralled by the blockhouse the USAF had left behind at Topsham. I lived in a Barrack at Topsham and worked at the Navy communication center at NAS Brunswick, now closed. I would love to know more about the vacuum tubes used in the SAGE computer system. You were fortunate to have worked with that equipment, yes?
Maybe you can call it fortunate but didn't feel that way to us at the time! We at CC (Central Computer changed out more plugable units that either the display or I/O people so we kept them busy in the repair lab. Some idiot even suggested we wear roller skates to get the plug-in modules but turned out to be too dangerous because a low of guys couldn't skate very well.
@@jazz4asahel
The entire system has the computing power of a modern day cell phone. But cost 1/3 the GNP.
Each systen had 64k of 36 bit words of memory and another 256k was added. Not even as much as a digital watch much less a cell phone. GOD bless the designers of that system! At times I am ashamed at where personal compters are today and would give up my life to have them disappear!
Really insightful comment. Brilliant in its abject ignorance. Lots of that here. SAGE and the FSQ-7 computer programmed pioneered numerous technologies you rely on today. Like the phone another commenter is so proud of. The computer was the first mass produced computer ever. The first touch screen displays were pioneered in SAGE. In fact, IBM took the work they did for SAGE and produced the IBM 360, the first widely used business computer. In fact, defense has led to many commercial spinoffs.
Actually they weren't touch screens as w know them now. You had to use a light gun whick used the screen display by timing the display.
Its amazing, without radars we would not have transistors, without transistors would not have computers. The massive room computer in this video is still using vacuum tubes I think.
There was a seperate room for the actual computers and a common room for both maintenance consoles. I'll never forget the speaker squacking as the processor worked. We got so we tuned it out of our hearing but when it stopped we new instantly the active computer stoppes working. Great experience and gave me great headstart on learning to programin COBOL from the civiian contractors! The claxton horn that went off wnetever they syitched generators cost me my hearing but it was worth it. (darned thing was about 10 foot behind ne while I was working at one of the consoles.
One of them is in Canada and was until three years ago completely underground. It is at CFB North Bay. I believe you can tour the new building.
We went to the moon with a DSKY computer with hard wired memory and total of 74 KB. There is one at the Evergreen Aviation and Space Museum in McMinnville Oregon
9 years later and still here!
You have all that because of SAGE and Whirlwind development, things like smart phones didnt just magically appear
It took 15 seconds for that system to process all the data. with aircraft moving at high speed including Mach the location of aircraft were behind where they actually were. During training missions with a lot of aircraft involved, frame time could get as high as 30 seconds and higher. So the aircraft display on the radar scope would be way off from where they actually were. I was at the 26th Air Division/NORAD Region-Luke AFB. from 1976 thru 1980, worked in weapons control. The whole system was done away with in the early 1980's and replaced with new off the shelf computers and the old systems SAGE were scraped out around 1983.
Did the computer screens really flash that slow (tube computers were clocked in kHz, not MHz), or is this a filming artefact? I know that CRT vector monitors (also arcade videogames etc.) are definitely the hardest task to film flickerfree because they had no constant frame rate.
This film reel deserves to be re-digitized in modern resolution.
wow this is so cool! I didn't realize this project ever existed!
@selahia The outright usefulness of this system never had a chance to be proven out as the cold war never went hot. However, the advances in technology this project wrought out have been wildly successful. Often times it takes a large and wealthy nation to innovate in a totally unknown field. In the beginning there was no market for these machines. It took the military to prove just how useful computers could be. What advances in technology has your nation driven forward?
The capacitor drum they showed was a copy of the one used on the ABC (Atanasoff Berry Computer).
I highly doubt they used capacitor drums in SAGE. More likely they were magnetic drums.
@@TheUglyGnome They were magnetic drums. Some were used to buffer the data rates between the CPU and the slower display systems. Read one word, skip 5, etc.
I wonder what they did with all that old hardware/ sell it on the surplus market or just scrap them? Or they could be sitting in a governent warehouse someplace with Indiana Jones Ark.
A lot of it ended up as movie props, and some real impressive ones at that. From Lost In Space. Get Smart. Fantastic Voyage. In Like Flint. The Towering Inferno and The Six Million Dollar Man to Independence Day (plus a whole raft more).
That was some creative recycling!
Cal Poly San Luis Obispo acquired one, and was still using it when I left in 1989. The vacuum tube, gylcol cooled room heater was reliable, easy to repair on the fly, a good machine for teaching students to program computers. However, the electrical costs to operate, the diminishing available parts and the introduction of pc's to student, reduced the desire by university administration to keep it. The CDC tech told me that other like computers were being sold to foreign governments and institutions in third world. But, I suspect by the mid 1990's, even those would be scrapped. I once saw a computer graveyard at Midway Atoll and another in Alaska, where the computers were piled. The federal agency that I worked for , came up with a cradle to grave policy, when they wanted to kill your project, but bought new computers every year, whether you needed it or not.
The FSQ-7 had 500,000 words of memory. Each word was made up of 36 bits.
True, my father was FAA liaison to NORAD from 64-94,he worked in several SAGE facilities before NORAD HQ. I have a framed photo of a Russian Bear being escorted by F-15's out of Langley. They would fly up from Cuba along the east coast to Russia...
Onece you work for IBM you always a IBM'r I have great respect for the company I use to work for.
Too bad you don't even hear about them any more. Once so powerful and one stupid mistake allowing MicroSoft to copy the operating system cost them so much!
I was a scope dope at the 4634th Sage Support Squadron, READS, Reno Air Defense Sector from 1963-1966 when sage was closed down at Stead AFB just north of Reno, NV. I wish I could attach a KMZ file I made that shows all the Sage Direction Centers using Google Earth. Was on A crew and worked tracking, OT, and manual inputs. Those were the days.
Everything you see in the movie was true. As I was stationed at the Washington Air Defense Sector (WADS) 1961 to 1962. Long after SAGE was disbanded I saw some of the displays being used in Hollywood sifi movies.
@Datan0de
And yet -- it was multitasking, multiuser and networked...with GUI...
If you drive by the airport on Highway 53 in Duluth, Minnesota you'll see a large mostly windowless building housing the Natural Resources Research Institute. It used to be a SAGE center.
Ran across this old patent 3190554 on a digital computer that ran on air. Wonder if anything was done with the idea.
I'd love to build a music synthesizer with fluidics. These circuits scream for becoming 3D printed. In 1960th fluidics was thought to replace electronics for making cheap mass produced computers! Apparently it got mainly used by soviets.
ruclips.net/video/01iiZEOwPqM/видео.html
It was too slow and big to compete with microchips, despite this cheap cybernetic technology could control household devices like washing machines by water (or air) pushed through a simple moulded piece of plastic. The only household item with success were Tomy water games. Nowadays fluidics is only used in chemical testing machines to mix and move small substance droplets around.
@@cyberyogicowindler2448 Was thinking if Babbage had this tech the Pipe Organ folks could have built his computer and Lady Ada could have invented COBOL . Cool huh? If you have an address I could sent what I have on this idea.
@@cyberyogicowindler2448 This nice lady Fran talked up my info. pack on the FLODAC. you can see it at 8:15 ruclips.net/video/5qgxsJp8MZk/видео.html . 3D printing up a FLODAC to calculate log tables would be kinda hip.
@@ufoengines In an alternate universe orchestrion makers and not war industry could have invented the computer.
Those vector displays are so cool
wow... blast from the past I was a 276, worked the 485L system (can still write backwards)
Those fighter interceptors were f100 super sabres.
Those on the ground were F-104's, both my favorite planes.
The SAGE bldg at Richards-Gebauer still stands, though is used for manufacturing now.
Not while I was stationed at McGuire NYADS. I think they closed it down right after I left . I left in May 1966 (a month early to attend college).
How many Gigaflops does the main SAGE computer have?
if i was to enter a room with so many lights and dials and buttons, i'd have to be restrained and sedated
"One of the most dangerous threats to our nation's security is the possibility of attack by enemy bombers..."
_(shows clip of a squadron of B-52 bombers)_
Why do the screen all flash at the same time? I assume that they work on a very different principle to modern crt screens.
from what heard they were low refresh screens (long phosphor persistence) this is probably because the system couldn't constantly refresh the screens since it was busy computing.
Yes they did. TV CRT's used a Raster scan which refreshed the screen between 25 and 29 times a second (the later is the US standard). The radar PPI (Plan Position Indicator) CRT on the other hand used a system that took the bearing of the radar antenna and used it to produce two pairs of Sawtooth waveforms which pushed /pulled the electron beam across the screen for the Raw radar video. The typical Air Defence radar for the time transmitted 250 large pluses of radio energy (1 megawatt or more) for around 5 microseconds. The Radar then listened for around 3000 microseconds for any echos. This gave the radar a maximum range of around 250 miles. While the radar was transmitting it was also turning at around 6 RPM, giving one 360 scan every 10 seconds or so. The radar's bearing was taken by data sensors and that controlled the maximum amplitude of the sawtooth wave patten, while its duration equaled the listening time of the radar with the start of the slope being synchronized to the time at which the radar started listening and the electron beam being at the center of the tube (know as X (North / South) and Y (East / West). The saw tooth waveform was fed to deflection coils around the neck of the CRT and would move the beam in a line equal to the direction of the radar antenna at the rate that the radio signal would take to go out to 250 miles and back If the beam was allowed to on all the time it would draw a solid line from the center of the screen to the edge which would turn at 6 RPM. This was used on some systems in a video map system which would scan a slide with a map on it and display it the signal picked up by a photoelectric cell on the CRT at the same time as the radar data. In the case of the PPI console though, the electron beam would only be allow to reach the phosphor if there was a radar return (or signal from the video map unit). Now 3005 microseconds x 250 equals about 0.75 seconds and the radar needed a short period to sort itself out before transmitting the next pulse of radio energy. During this 1 millisecond period (known as the intertrace) x 250 times a second the display wasn't doing anything and this allowed the computer to generate various graphics on the screen by putting various sawtooth and squarewave signals on the deflection coils and allowing a bright up pulse to the electron beam to show them on the screen. This allowed lines and circles to be drawn very much like vector graphics in Coraldraw. The rest of the symbols, letters, numbers and other data were most likely not generated by the computer bar what data was needed to be displayed and its position. This was fed to a system that fired a number of devices called Monoscopes that were basically like a video map but used its own scanning system to electronically scan a plate with a symbol on it to produce the required small X and y deflection signals, plus an electron beam bright up signal to draw that symbol on the CRT. The actual position of the symbol on the CRT being based around a bigger X and Y deflection squarewave generated by the computer. The computer could not draw all of this information on the CRT every intra trace but did it over about 20 to 25 of them and then started again, The reason for this is the Human eye refreshes its view of the world around 7 times a second and any screen refresh lower than 9 times a second will cause the screen to flicker, like on the film. The reason for the flicker on the film is due to two reasons, firstly the film does not have an exposure capability anywhere like that of the human eye and secondly its frame rate is 24 frames a second. Therefore the CRT display will strobe with the film in the camara and not show what was actually on the display.
Richard Vernon I actually found some manuals on the AN/FSQ-7 and the display system on the net, and apparently it used a type of picture tube that has a character matrix that would shine an unfocused beam into the matrix, shining out the character or pictograph (called a typotron, I believe) And it was deflected back to the center of the tube to later be deflected again to the screen. This way the computer didn't have to commit more time to vector draw images. Of cause I don't know EVERYTHING about it because I just looked a the diagrams instead of reading all the text :/ If you want to see said manuals I can send you the bitsavers link.
That is an artifact of the filming process. They used vector graphics in which the electron beam would be blanked, moved to a starting point, then turned on and moved to draw a symbol or a line. The light gun (their version of a mouse) would detect when the symbol it was on was being refreshed and the console would associate that with screen coordinates and hence the symbol being selected. Filming captures an image at least 25 to 30 times per second in order to simulate motion (then display each image twice at a 60 Hz rate to eliminate flicker -- same thing with raster scan TVs). So sometimes the camera caught the displays when they were refreshing, but more often not. BTW, when you see airplane propellers "reverse direction" in a movie, that is also an artifact of the filming process called "aliasing".
Today it works similar, displays are updated only on set moments but instead of this system which clearly shows that, today it is done 60 times per second or even up to 144 times per second, making it impossible to notice with the naked eye.
Reminds me of the 1960s Ken Russell film "The Billion Dollar Brain" (Len Deighton). also, in the early 1980s cards and reel-to-reel were still in use to regulate machinery in a steel mill where I worked.
Sad the RCAF used to provide about 1/3 of the interceptor for NORAD with day, night and all weather jets. Also had Bomarc Missiles some nuclear tipped and some interceptors were armed with nuclear tipped Genie air to air missiles. Today we are lucky if the ancient CF-18 makes it off the runway without breaking down. Best pilots oldest dwindling fighters
SIDS and DIDS. Remember them well. Work in the SAGE complex, Luke AFB, Glendale, AZ from 1976 to 1984.
+Art Wright How accurate was the film in depicting the refresh rates of the radar CRTs? It looked like vector redraw/refresh rates were on the order of 0.75 to 1.0 seconds per update.
Probably not good. Too much blank time. I think it's beating against the camera's frame rate. (I'm guessing that would be 24fps.)
That makes sense. It seems unusable if it really looked the way the camera sees it.
That building still sits on the east side of Litchfield Road, next to the base hospital. What happened after Air Defense Command was ended in ~1970?
@@WarrenPostma That's likely a filming artefact due to unequal (and varying) vector display framerate.
THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM - THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM - THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM
yes, many are still in place, but most are located on air force/army bases. see the SAGE wikipedia page.
The birth of the internet people. Remember: however cool your cellphone may be, your government has bigger, better, more terrifying stuff. Computers and atomic war, both products of WW2, advanced together.
Great vid.
"Here's your multi billion dollar nuclear and conventional weapons system. But the really HARD part is to know out what it's doing. For that we'll need a compUTer."
I wonder if the SAGE System has been upgraded to early 21st Century/2010's standard or not?
+Isaac Adam Most likely it's been completely replaced by a different system. When I was in the AF in '84, our SAGE director site was used for a lot of other purposes, because it was this huge concrete block to support massive computers that had been by then completely replaced with smaller and more powerful systems. The actual SAGE functions were confined to a single floor; the rest of the building was essentially taken over to be the base HQ offices. Routine electronics updates are commonplace in the Air Force - typical government inefficiency notwithstanding. The base I was at was decommissioned; the director site along with it.
+MrJest2 Thank you for your information.
+Isaac Adam I believe that the US has multiple redundant sets of capabilities in 2016 that far exceed 3x the full capability of SAGE, which as this video description points out was only used until the early 1980s. Parts of the SAGE system influenced the design of the SABRE system which although redesigned several times, is still an active important civilian aerospace technology even today.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabre_(computer_system)
I worked in the Air Force at the SAGE DC in Topsham, Maine 62-66. If you look at an satellite view now it is all gone.
@camposantoo The German system of WW II was similar to the British system. Both of these used GCI or Ground Controlled Intercept. There was a similar system in Germany but this was not implemented until the 1970's. NADGE or NATO Air Defence Ground Environment. One of their SOC's was in the 'Kindsbach Cave' which is described elsewhere. You can read a lot about the RAF systems and especially their approach to defeating the German Air Defense systems at the RAF Historical Society.
Can anyone kindly tell me if these buildings are still up? I'd like to visit them some time!
The two I worked in, Duluth, MN and Corvallis, OR are still there. I visited the Corvallis site last year. It's used by several companies. The Duluth building is visible in Google Earth pictures.
When did they start to use it for business accounting?
I believe that SABRE computer is one of the first offshoots. It is the basis of airline ticket reservation systems.
@SpecialEdAllstar You think that the Soviets never tested this system. They made thousands of 'penetration runs' with manned bombers, most notably the TU-95 Bear. They also deployed their famous fleet of 'fishing boats' around our shores. The best fishing was usually near a NORAD radar station like CFS Holberg on Norhern Vancouver Island. Prime fishing time was during SAC/NORAD joint exercises.
sage radar was supposed to be this big thing but in reality they had many many problems with sage radar
yeah but does it have direct connection to missiles and other military weapons :3
Must have because when testing the communications they forgot to have our switch at one site turned to feedback loop and the BOMARC missles rose out of their underground hide outs and our brave airment mostly abandoned the site! Their were 18 hanging on a pickup speeding down the exit road when stopped by an officer comming to inspect thair site! Funny as heck for us in the CC but some real trouble for those hanging onto the pickup truck!
excellent video...very interesting and informative
I really dunno why I like watching vintage computer videos, they just really seem interesting
To put this into perspective ...
Year Producer/Product Calculating power Price
1953 MIT Whirlwind II 0.00015 MIPS for 1,063,197 US$
2014 Intel Core i7 5960X 336,000.00000 MIPS for 1,049 US$
that's 2.24 billions times the calculating power at 0,0987 percent of the costs.
(Not inflation costs adjusted / jcmit.net/cpu-performance.htm)
I'm guessing this was originally in color. If so, this film is badly degraded. Surprising, as one would expect quality film stock and storage from the DoD.
The detailed descriptions here are not kept secret from the enemy. Interesting attitude towards the perceived enemy. "We know you can't duplicate this. Look on and despair."
the film where likely not for public consumption. likely information intended for the airforce peopem
this has more a feel of an internal educational film than anything supposed to be viewed by an international public audience. And while scientists and technicians were maybe in the habit of recording their experiments on high quality film stocks to accommodate detailed analysis, these educational reels were most likely considered to have a fairly short life-span. Existing only for a short while during its educational value. Therefore a cheaper medium was likely chosen. Also. What we are watching now is probably a cheap 16mm distribution copy. Not exactly meant to stand the test of time.
Even hollywood productions of the era have had problems preserving full color archival prints. Most degrading into single-tone browns. The ones that survive the best are those that got a 3 strip monochrome technicolor separation archival treatment.
So on the contrary I am not exactly surprised that this copy is in this poor shape.
+Harry Ohrt Actually the idea was to make the soviets think that a first attack on the US was unfeasible. So, while I think that this video was training material, there was a certain amount of public advertising about the system, as a deterrent against the soviets having funny ideas.
And basically, considering there was not a III World War, it looks like it worked.
Harry Ohrt the quality of the film is exactly why it's so awesome
Harry, The quality of this film is the same as I viewed it in 1965. These were not high buck films. Just used for training and informal information.
@ironbear Nothing would've been different. The current ATC system in the US is descended from the SAGE system. The 9/11 attacks used civilian aircraft. 9/11 wasn't a failure in ability to track aircraft. Your comment is meaningless unless it's your assertion that any civilian aircraft that deviates from its registered flight plan for any reason should be blown out of the sky. If that IS what you're claiming, then I hope you don't work for the FAA or the Air Force.
I am doing a essay about Cold War air defence, so thanks for the video.
@blueblob4 In all likelihood, a solar powered calculator that you can buy in a blister pack at the drug store for $.99 has faster numerical computing power than an AN/FSQ-7. As far as actual capability, it's probably not quite as powerful as a Commodore 64. The computer you're reading this comment on almost certainly has an order of magnitude more computing power than the entire SAGE network combined, and more than every computer on the planet combined when this video was made.
Yeah? How many missiles does your kickass Netbook control?
I heard "High speed anime bombers'
Can it run crysis?
@RavenRof R/SAOC was updated by General Dynamics in the 1990s. Remember that the computing power needed is not very large and they have been at it for sixty years. I would expect to see this sort of application in a private, secure cloud some day. Distributed, redundant systems with lots of connectivity to weapons like F-22, F-35, AWACS, AEGIS, the White-house X-Box 360, Obama's iPhone. There's an app for that!
And in future coming generation people will need to defend their houses against attacking microbots and nanobots, so every building may need its own malbot defense as a technical immune system more complex than SAGE with ant-sized defense robots to survive the age before Grey Goo.
In all that complicity there was technology. We as humans are resourceful.
that is not a measure of performance any where but within the same chip...
The best cross chips reference would be IPS or OPS, but are not perfect as well, as what is done within 2 operation in one arch could be done within 1 in another...
12:34 what's that dude doing with pointing that gun gizmo on the screen?
I'd imagine that's a clunky version of a mouse - to tell the computer what target he's wanting to select.
It looks like a light pen.
They weren't nuclear bombs in reality, although they did have the option. If an interceptor couldn't drive the intruder out of our airspace, they had conventional weapons with which to shoot down an enemy aircraft. Fortunately, this never happened, as the Russians were just testing our defenses,and we always responded. That's why that era was known as the 'Cold War.'
SAGE = War Games' WOPR?
I wonder whats the benchmark
50 Khz per second
@PObserver It was actually part of NORAD.
Man, I love this shit
A good Dell with an an i9 could run all the computing needs of one warship of yesteryear!
Baloney. What's your source of expertise? I repaired the SAGE system and it wasn't obsolete against ICBM's at all. Missiles were not too fast at all for the system to track. Your remark is pure ignorance. The reason it became obsolete was that a better and faster system was developed at Cheyenee Mountain.
it can fit in a chip smaller then u can c
This is a great film but it needs color correction.
Buddy Cox no way. The crappy quality is what gives it the charm!
was this actually built all over the country?
@persevere67 Actualy your GSM phone would beat it, but that isnt the point. These are the father of the very ideas of computing. Before there we're even specs tht you now compare.
how many flops??
75k instructions/s according to wikipedia, sooo... not many.