IBM Sage Computer Ad, 1960

How we used to shoot down missiles, with punch cards and light wands.

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• IBM
• commercial
• old
• computer
• sage
• missiles

[KCRascal]

I used to work with those computers. The consoles shown here are in what was called the command post (or snake pit). They also had Weapons people and Operations people on the 3rd and 4th floor. (Can't remember which was which) I wrote computer programs for that computer (actually the one near Newburgh NY) Called the Boston Air Defense Sector. There were actually two computers, the A side and B side. We could do other work on the side that was not active. I did this from 1958 to 1962

[lsybrandt]

Later to be replaced by WOPR

[KCRascal]

@TheRoninkin.  74

[TheRoninkin]

@KCRascal Not to be mean but....How old are you? lol.

[AerialTheShamen]

A strange game... The only winning move is not to play. (WOPR, "War Games")

Was the strange light gun device the ancestor of the Vectrex light pen?

[TopOnTheAndroid]

That thing even has a cigarette lighter!

[unapologeticmind]

Ah, the good old days when you could actually buy real computers that had the smell of diesel and that came bundled with missile launchers for an extra fee. Sure beats playing World of Warcraft on your laptop...

[dapete]

I had no idea Tom Hanks was so old.

[swizzletik]

@lexvalesa The answer is "yes", it could. But when I worked in SAGE in the late 70s, the BOMARCS and other missiles were decommissioned; only fighter interceptor aircraft remained to engage an unknown or target. My memory is that all such intercepts were ultimately under manual voice control from the weapon controllers based at the SAGE sites, who tracked everything using the SAGE-digitized radar presentations. In a general peacetime environment, this would be the safest way to identify a plane.

[swizzletik]

@gardnerbm The SAGE computer relied on raw radar input data from multiple ground sites to determine the aircraft's location and track. No satellites used.

[swizzletik]

@syncmaster710n14 LOL! I worked in SAGE a long time ago. The Windows Paper Clip would have been super, yet just as annoying as it was in the 1990s! I think we would have turned it off.