Computer History IBM SAGE Boeing BOMARC Missile Defense System 1950's Military MIT

Computer History Archives Project ("CHAP")

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Back-to-back, two “Cold War” computing films that complement each other. First, IBM’s commercial for the SAGE computer system built in the 1950’s for U.S. defense. SAGE was used by NORAD and included the BOMARC missile system, which is the subject of film #2 “The Armored Sky” from 1958. (see info below)
Topics:
SAGE
IBM AN/FSQ-7
BOMARC IM-99 B weapon system
NORAD (North American Air Defense Command)
B-52 aircraft; Texas Towers (RADAR)
RC-121 in flight; four F-1O2A's in flight
{IBM film copyright © IBM. BOMARC film produced by Boeing under contract to U.S. Air Force. Courtesy of National Archives, VHS tape, USAF #31456.}
BOMARC relied on the Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) computer system (MIT, IBM) used by NORAD for detecting, tracking and intercepting enemy bombers. SAGE allowed for remote launching of the BOMARC missiles, which were housed in 14 individual launch shelters in remote areas of the U.S. and two in Canada. Boeing built over 570 BOMARC missiles.
There were over 25 individual SAGE building sites called Direction Centers, each one with two SAGE AN/FSQ-7 computers installed. SAGE was the world’s largest computer, with 60,000 vacuum tubes, 13,000 transistors and 175,000 diodes.
Pieces of the SAGE can be seen in various old TV shows, such as “Time Tunnel”, “Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea,” and many others.
IBM Archives online
www-03.ibm.com/ibm/history
SAGE/BOMARC Air Defense Weapons (60 pg manual, 1958)
ftp://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/ibm/sage/SAGE_BOMARC_Defense_System_1958.pdf
ed-thelen.org/index.html#history
scottlocklin.wordpress.com/20...
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2 ноя 2016

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Комментарии : 68

@aramboodakian9554 3 месяца назад

For those of you that are familiar with Jack Kirby the comic book artist the BOMARC style missile was one of his favorite to draw in the early 60s Marvel Comics. Always with those big triangular wings.

@torquemada1971 5 лет назад

After watching this video I picked up a two-pack a day habit of Chesterfield unfiltered.

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject 5 лет назад

... and is this due in part to every SAGE console having a built-in ash tray? : )

@torquemada1971 5 лет назад

These are manly men guarding our country.

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject 5 лет назад

Oh, gotcha! Thanks!

@proteusnz99 4 месяца назад

I was being trained as a programmer in the late seventies/early eighties. I think we were the last cohort to routinely use punch cards, so much so that they’d stopped replacing the typewriter ribbons in the card punch machines, so that the printed data at the top of each card was becoming very faint, you got good at reading the actual holes. Being able to type code directly into a terminal was much easier, though as undergrad students your slice of timeshare meant you had great opportunities to develop patience waiting for keystrokes to produce a response. I think the SAGE system was Project Whirlwind, the first real-time interactive system. The screen/light pen/gun was a GUI, and it’s interesting to reflect how long it was until such developments made their way into civilian applications, and a long strange journey it’s been.

@stevemoren286 4 года назад

I was in on this in 1970 at Duluth Air Base MN. HQ 23rd NORAD Region . We had Bomarcs and F-106 interceptors there. All were nuke-armed. Nobody really knew about it. SAGE was really hi-tech for those days. We had an internet, too.

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject 4 года назад

Hi Steve, sounds pretty awesome and fascinating too. Wonder what became of these sites and weapons. ~ CHAP

@stevemoren286 4 года назад

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject I think the U of M took over the blockhouse and there is an f-16 ang squadron there now. Bomarcs were probably recycled. That Bomarc was really an ass kicker. Amazing technology for the fifties.

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject 4 года назад

Fascinating, thank you for the info and feedback! ~ Victor at CHAP.

@stevemoren286 4 года назад

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject oh, one more thing. Ashtrays were built into the display consoles and the areas that we worked were lit with blue light so we could see the display better which was orange.

@Pernoctate Год назад

It was a strange time. My dad talked about the beauty of the math in the aeronautical engineering for the Bomarc. Today, all of that is done with computers.

@fredericktaylor2891 2 года назад

I spent time on bases of different commands but was always assigned to ADC. I was never assigned to a direction center as I was an ECCM- DQ tech. We were a small group restricted to LRR sites, we were responsible for the quality and quantity of data being processed by the T-2 and T-1 and later the Q-47. My early years were spent at manual sites and aboard AEW&C aircraft, EC-121D before I cross trained to the ECCM-DQ field.

@videosuperhighway7655 7 лет назад

The last SAGE center just got decommissioned last month. It was in a classified location and still in use. Tons of Tubes, it was quite impressive.

@Brokenrocktail 5 лет назад

Source?

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject 5 лет назад

Good question. I'd like to see a list of all decommissioned sites by date. That would be fascinating. I bet the DOD has such a list. Maybe an FOIA could get some of that info. ~ Victor

@notmyrealname1698 Год назад

My grandfather was one of the first people in the Air Force to be trained on computers by ibm and he actually set up these servers in Germany after the war. He said they were way more advanced than what the government would admit. Says the civilian market didn’t catch up to 1950’s military tech until 1969. Idk why specifically that year it’s just what he told me. Can’t imagine how much the military had developed it since the 50’s and what they have now. Remember if we even hear rumors about tech then it’s not even close to the best they’ve got. People who work with truly cutting edge military tech are monitored 24/7. It’s not hard especially with smart phones.

@jwaustinmunguy 9 месяцев назад

The computer used 36-bit word memory and consisted of 500,000 words. Switching elements were vacuum tunes. It would have been difficult to implement advanced systems in the 1950s without semiconductors that had not been invented. NORAD had SAGE long before NATO had NADGE. The airbases in Germany were built about 200 miles from the Iron Curtain during the early 1950s. The biggest improvement was the NATO purchase of AWACS.

@CocoaBeachLiving 4 года назад

We've come a long way. Amazing what they could do with the tech they had.

@georgegonzalez2476 Месяц назад

Not so much. Your microwave oven has more computing power than all the SAGE sites. The system couldn’t tolerate jamming or chaff. And ICBMs coming along made it all useless.

@thomthumbe 4 года назад

I still have a couple boxes of those punch cards, somewhere in my things (not BOMARC, but for some other wild and crazy program at the time.) Some punched and some not. I used to use them as scratch paper, but haven't done so for a number of years. Brings back lots of fond memories.

@DeckardCain1986 7 лет назад

Excellent video archive!! Thanks for uploading it

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject 7 лет назад

You are very welcome! Thanks for watching!

@johntaylor-lo8qx 3 года назад

Gr8 old school fottage !!! Gr8 channel 🙏

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject 3 года назад

John, thank you for the kind words! I am glad you found our channel. Hope you enjoy our 100+ vintage videos. ~ Victor, at CHAP

@Pernoctate Год назад

My dad worked on development of the Bomarc. Using hydrogen bomb payloads within 400 miles of deployment as a tactical defense was insane as nuclear war was. We estimated that the fallout from our own weapons would kill 25% of the US population and that was deemed acceptable losses. Kind of hard on Canada as well.

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject Год назад

Hi John, that is an amazing (and scary) statistic!

@nukiepoo Год назад

They were low yield fusion boosted fission warheads (~10kt). The story is an exaggeration. The idea was for the EMP to take out the bomber’s electronics, not just blow them up with giant yield thermonuclear blasts

@danross1489 7 лет назад

"Computer History Archives Project"? Cooool. Hey, if you ever get any material on old Soviet computers, especially those used in the beginning of their space program, I would be very interested (subbed). I visited a huge "museum of technology" in Prague last year, and they had many rooms of computing and communications equipment, from (a model of) Babbage's Analytical Engine onwards to the IBM PCs of the early 90s. There were a few of these huge 50s era computers, that looked like they might have been for some sort of highly sophisticated fire control or radar tracking. If you ever get a chance to travel to Europe (I can tell you are not European by the devices you have on your channel :p), then I highly recommend a visit to this museum, and Prague in general.

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject 7 лет назад

Hi Dan. Thanks very much for the tip. If I make to Europe in the future, I will keep your recommendation of the Museum of Technology in Prague in mind. Sounds fascinating! The city too, is beautiful, from the photos I have seen. Thanks again!

@Omegasupreme1078 9 месяцев назад

It would have been nice if Bomarc had worked anywhere near as well as this video supposed it would. SAGE, though, was a tremendous accomplishment-- they accomplished with vacuum tubes and punch cards something that would still be a huge challenge with modern electronics.

@RCAvhstape 7 лет назад

It's so sterile-looking, with Air Force guys in dress uniforms pushing buttons and staring at computer screens, but that was the Boston center, and those bombers were bearing down on it with nuclear bombs, no doubt some of which would be targeting the very building those guys are sitting in. Provides motivation for shooting them down as fast and as far away as possible. And of course, every one of those BOMARCs was nuking the bombers over the ocean. Fascinating and scary.

@Pernoctate Год назад

That was what everyone talked about. Knocking down waves of bombers coming over the Pacific. The shortest path is over the pole, not the Pacific. It would have been over Canada and Alaska. Four hundred mile range with a tactical hydrogen bomb. Again, acceptable losses from the fallout from our weapons of defense was calculated to be 25% of our population.

@randycoppola2069 5 лет назад

Computer cards? What if a flight was delayed? Seriously I am amazed we didn't blow ourselves up!

@JAGRAFX 4 года назад

Notice to all young, upcoming IT personnel: Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM.

@Mark_Ocain 4 года назад

now you get fired working at IBM LOL

@bjoernphotography Месяц назад

Impressive technology… so sad thats the systems are „lost“…

@MultiMonitorComputer 7 лет назад

this is epic

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject 7 лет назад

Agreed. Just the size and scope of these 1950's era projects is astounding to me. The massive amount of metal, concrete, human labor and $$$ that went into these systems is astounding. Over 25 bomb proof, dual redundant computer installations simultaneously online.. in 1956... amazing! Thanks for watching and commenting.

@samsquach3799 3 года назад

@@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject Not to mention all the men and woman that were highly trained to do the various jobs. All we did was train for WW3 and prayed that we would never have to see those bombers for real. Thanks

@rrhone 6 лет назад

They had 'hours' to deal with things, where now we have minutes. Times have really changed and hopefully they have us covered in America.

@timgrimes2589 2 года назад

cool thanks

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject 2 года назад

Hi Tim, glad you enjoyed it! ~ Victor

@TheDjtricks Месяц назад

India justice to you unisco thought . Namaste to your language .

@altamiradorable 7 лет назад

Where is Dr. Strangelove in the video ?

@ufoengines 7 лет назад

Yep I remembered right, the BOMAC was made with radioactive Mag - Thor ! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mag-Thor . Wonder if this stuff was used in household stuff like vacuum cleaners, washing machines, or home stereo equipment . FLODAC Patent 3190554 , The Digital Computer that computes with AIR! (No Mag - Thor used in it's construction ).

@nukiepoo Год назад

We still TIG weld with Thorium electrodes today. Lanthanum is available but many welders still prefer Th

@danross1489 7 лет назад

22:58 A flight of Avro Arrows on intercept :D

@miles2378 7 лет назад

Dan Ross no i think they are US single engine F102.

@RCAvhstape 7 лет назад

Those are F-102s.

@ufoengines 7 лет назад

Read somewhere that a Thorium alloy was used in the BOMARK's structure which made the missile slightly radioactive and thus they were removed from static display out side air force bases etc. Thorium Nuclear Energy! Energy Cheaper Then Coal! ( Dig the You Tubes on this subject. ) Where did the FLODAC end up?

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject 6 лет назад

FLODAC? Good question. Don't know the answer to that one.

@ufoengines 6 лет назад

Been trying to find out if it still exist to use as a go by for making my own using 3D printing . Patent 3190554 . I always like to add that if Babbage had this tech he could have had the pipe organ folks make his "engines" for him and Lady Lovelace could have invented COBOL! Dig this other patent / idea for a digital computer that computes with air , patent 3057551 .

@neighbor18 5 лет назад

They are on many static displays

@abbush2921 Год назад

Ahh toe to toe nuclear combat .

@rrhone 6 лет назад

Did they require presidential authority to fire these defensive Bomarc's? They were nuclear tipped, correct?

@stevemoren286 4 года назад

No. Air Defense Emergency Declared by CINCNORAD. There is no time to ask permission.

@NN-uu9qo 6 лет назад

U gotta love meaningless blinking lights.

@ComputerHistoryArchivesProject 6 лет назад

Didn't meaningless blinking lights all start with the ENIAC in 1946?

@macieksoft 6 лет назад

They all have meaning. Every single light have meaning.

@nukiepoo Год назад

Meaningless. They were displaying the actual machine language code. Computers used to be programmed byte by byte using switches and such display lights.

@marmaly 3 года назад

Could have used this system on 9/11.

@karenelizabeth1590 3 года назад

Not for that type of attack, sorry.

@proteusnz99 3 месяца назад

Authorise shoot downs of civilian airliners not during wartime? That cloud of dust on the horizon is the politicians fleeing responsibility, let someone wearing a uniform be the fall guy if it goes wrong.