On Guard! The Story of SAGE (IBM SAGE Computer, 1956)

Propaganda aside, this is an interesting film about the SAGE continental air-defence network used by the U.S. military during the cold war. It was the largest computer ever built, consisting of approximately 60,000 vacuum tubes, weighing about 250 Tons. The computer took up two floors on a four storey building, boasting a massive computing performance of 75 KIPS (kilo instructions per second), with a power consumption of 3 MW. Yes, that's megawatts!

The project was commissioned in the 1950s and was operational by 1963. Apparently the system was in continuous operation until 1983! The total cost for building the system was estimated between 8 to 12 billion dollars (1964).

Amazing if you think about it, today you can buy a single-chip micro controller that runs at several MIPS on the smell of an oil rag, and costs practically nothing per unit.

Original video source is from the Prelinger Archives:
http://www.archive.org/details/OnGuard1956

More information about the computer system:
http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/IBM-SAGE-computer.htm

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• SAGE
• IBM SAGE
• SAGE computer
• defence network
• US military
• U.S. military
• cold war
• Military
• Army
• display scope