IBM Sage Computer Ad, 1960

[@TOKEN511]

Pro design tip: The FIRE button should not look like the others. 1:33

[@SilverSpoon_]

back ago they used commonsense and knew which button to press would lead to which action. today, it's like, you need to see "warning: coffee is hot" on a teacup. and it was just 50 years ago!

[@TheCuriousNoob]

Silver Spoon I do believe a common error almost ended the world a couple of times during those times... not to mention people getting excited about spaghetti trees on the BBC. Then again, all older people call younger ones dumb. I did it today and got sad.

[@maclovindotca]

I agree, and it should not be right above the button that said CANCEL FIRE !!

[@sirknight4981]

LOL x- D

[@215alessio]

exactly what i was thinking

[@_weighed8302]

to be honest i am more fascinated by this technology than the technology we have today.

[@mahzorimipod]

And much like today's defense boondoggles, SAGE never would have worked in a real life Soviet attack.

[@daryllect6659]

Especially the radar antennas.

[@godfreypoon5148]

@@mahzorimipod Why not?

[@iLegionaire3755]

Especially because today's technology COULDN'T exist without this foundation!

[@drkastenbrot]

@@mahzorimipod this didnt age well with the performance us air defense systems are showing in ukraine.

[@Anonyminded]

Friend or foe, we press: FIRE! ;)

[@checksandbalences]

Ano Nymous hahaa

[@cryptnotic]

"Freeing man's mind to shape the future." That's a nice company slogan.

[@casibefa]

That sound a little bit like a propaganda motto !

[@BoyScout1960]

"IBM: Freeing man's mind-- to shape the future." Or completely annihilate it, whichever comes first.

[@user-1billlon]

IBM is still here as Lenovo it survived!

[@colonelmustard2652]

@@user-1billlon false.

[@user-1billlon]

@@colonelmustard2652 your wrong

[@colonelmustard2652]

@@user-1billlon do your research or come up with a more cogent and informed response. IBM is American. Lenovo is headquartered in Beijing, God bless them.

[@user-1billlon]

@@colonelmustard2652 and it doesn’t mean about the states.

[@flossflink]

"Oh wait, that was a passenger plane. oops"

[@OrinokawaMizuki]

SAGE was inputted with the data of all known commercial flights. The purpose is to filter commercial flights from the view. All of the radar blips in SAGE were tracked manually by eyes and hands. Basically a team of radarmen observed the radar screens, checking any possible aircraft flight, and then input it into the SAGE system, to be processed. Afterward, the SAGE system give the SAGE operator the filtered out view of the world. From there, the SAGE operator track any UFO the SAGE system showed to him. An offshot of SAGE is SABRE, that handled the booking and arrangement of seatings for commercial flights. The name "SABRE" itself probably an unused codename for SAGE. Then there's the MAGI Super Computer system, inspired by SAGE, with 3 of its cores named after the 3 sages / wise men. It was also built by a MIT, one of the nodes is even at MIT.

[@NLS87]

The sage is so awesome, it has a ashtray in every console! LIKE A BOSS!

[@silpheedTandy]

omg, that soundtrack makes this a surprisingly nail-biting little video. amazing marketing job, IBM!

[@daryllect6659]

0:11 "You can't fight in here! This is The War Room!"

[@AloisWeimar]

Anyone else thinking Fallout ?

[@LeminskiTankscor]

Absolutely, it's the right mix of twee giddyness of new technology, mixed with the threat of ambiguous warfare.

[@basilbcf]

I was a maintenance man on the SAGE computer system for 7 years. Most fun I ever had in the military. I have a sheet of the system's "core" memory in my office.

[@jameszheng4455]

Can you do a video on how the core memory worked and how you serviced the system?

[@James_Knott]

I have a core memory plane from a Collins 8500 computer here. Collins made mil spec versions of IBM systems.

[@fjccommish]

@CoolConejo Many people don't understand how amazing this was, not only for the technology but for managing to perform such complex tasks with limited machinery. The computers were far less powerful, far slower, yet the technology that combined them with radar was amazing.

[@RyanSchweitzer77]

Yes indeed, SAGE (and the computer system that was it's nerve center, the AN/FSQ-7, pictured at 0:40) was quite a ground-breaking computer system for its time, and introduced several then-new concepts for computing such as networking via phone modem, an interactive user interface, graphical displays (each SAGE terminal used a Charactron CRT). Jingoistic warmongering purposes or not, the SAGE system definitely brought quite a few new technologies of computing to the table..

[@micmac99]

Narrator sounds like Norman Rose. Longtime voice-over narrator for commercials, movie trailers and even some ABC-TV promos.

[@bobsutton4320]

It is Norman Rose. He was also a radio actor in the 1940s and beyond.

[@space2803]

IBM: How big does this computer need to be to accommodate all your needs? U.S Airforce: Yes.

[@yakacm]

IBM (International Business Machines), controlling an IBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile). That system is amazing considering how early it was, especially when you think that they went from the first complete Turing machine to this in a bout 10 years.

[@Aussie50]

Vintage IBM, best workhorse PC builder in the world!

[@jsl151850b]

*After retiring from the Air Force SAGE went on to appear in many Sci-Fi movies and TV series.*

[@LeminskiTankscor]

Legit waiting for that "Prepare for the Future" ending card to play, as well as a date for release on PC and console. Love this stuff.

[@cryptnotic]

@yakacm No. No one ever built an explicit Turing machine until modern times when it became feasible for interested hobbyists, artists, and others to make them as novelties. The Turing Machine is an idea used to inquire about what is possible with computer systems.

[@irish89055]

My father worked the Sage block house at Stewart AFB in Newburgh, NY from 64-70 as FAA liaison,to NORAD, when it was closed along with the base. We transfered to another Sage facility at Ft Lee, Va. They closed it in1981(just the NORAD facility). Ft Lee Army post is booming. A whole floor of mainframe antiques are still there I believe. Too bad they closed so many facilities after the cold war, would have helped on 9/11 though radars were looking outward..

[@workingcountry1776]

The one in Syracuse maybe but by 2001 modern air traffic control was doing its thing. If you listen to radio transmission from the day between ATC, pilots, and NORAD its hair raising

[@James_Knott]

That "gun" was one of the first, if not the first, pointing device used with a computer. Also, not mentioned here was the chain of radar stations across Canada. The first was called the PInetree line, followed later by the Mid Canada and DEW lines. I used to work for a Canadian telecom and back in the mid 70s would come across some SAGE circuits. My work would also take me into the radar sites and there was one site, in Armstrong Ontario (about 150 north east of Thunder Bay), that was shut down shortly before my first visit there. Later on, someone converted that site to a "hotel" and I'd stay in the former officers quarters. The officers mess became a restaurant and bar. On one trip there, I borrowed a motorcycle and rode around the remains of the radar station. Bottom line, SAGE drove a lot of advances in computers and telecom.

[@TomMcRand]

and not only did they shoot it down, they shot it down backwards in time to a WW2 airplane. (stock footage fail)

[@Prathikraj_mysorean]

RIP for the Airplane piolet 😢 🙏

[@PremiumFuelOnly]

wow, thats quite a bit for a computer to program today to do without GPS

[@driftliketokyo34ftw35]

Rare footage of NERV testing an early prototype of the Magi system.

[@Kaynos]

Sage : 1024 Bits of RAM, 1024k of Hard Drive, 1024 switches.

[@godfreypoon5148]

One large cabinet ("256^2") of core was 65,535 x 36 bits, and a small cabinet ("64^2") was 4,096 x 36. RAMAC 305 was ~5Mbytes, and there were drums everywhere.

[@mottledbrain]

Almost three minutes for a commercial! The longest I remember is one minute. (All commercials were one minute long when I was little.) In high school we always used punch cards. But no monitors. (We were depraved. No, make that deprived.)

[@rawtoastz]

POV: you have tech class

[@SergeantPsycho]

Anyone else seeing this and thinking of Skynet from Terminator?

[@BurnRoddy]

FFAA has a similar protocol derived from an organization called NORAD which would autorize a jet fighter intercept and take down a potentially dangerous unauthorized aircraft if it was to penetrate a restricted zone. Somehow that protocol was uneffective on 911.

[@purefoldnz3070]

There will be no fighting in the war room!

[@SynchroScore]

@bummwummn This system wouldn't have done a thing for 9/11, mainly because there was no precedent to using a commercial aircraft as a weapon...unless, of course, we had a policy to shoot down any aircraft that went off-course. Naturally, such a policy would be totally insane.

[@candysss]

this computer can handle cs2

[@haloasc]

Sage goes in all fields.

[@Membrane556]

@CoolConejo A lot of the engineering concepts taken for granted in modern computer can be traced back to the Sage system.

[@SilverSpoon_]

sageing threads the old fashioned way.

[@jsl151850b]

After its military service, the SAGE components went to Hollywood where it appeared in the TV series Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, The Time Tunnel, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., Lost in Space and recently, Lost. Could SAGE be the machine that inspired the novel and then the movie Fail Safe? (THAT computer could look into Russia! Not sure that was ever possible, at least not as shown.)

[@Dyeme0986]

This kinda proves that two forms of the human mind/consciousness are walking the planet at the same moment in time space.

[@sirfred2678]

[2:38] This ancient programming using perforated cards... :D:D

[@James_Knott]

Hey!!! I used to work with punch card equipment!!!

[@sirfred2678]

@@James_Knott Yaaay! 10 ? "HELLO, DUDE!": GOTO 10 RUN

[@James_Knott]

@@sirfred2678 I never used punch cards for BASIC, but used pencil mark cards in my grade 12 FORTRAN class. In my work, the punch cards were used in a system for keeping track of railroad freight cars.

[@sirfred2678]

@@James_Knott In your punch card times we probably still had ODRA times still, because of comunism/socialism here in Poland until 1989, so we were behind "iron curtain" and West COCOM embargo didn't allow East Europe countries to use more advanced technologies like ATARI 65XE/C64 or ATARI STE/AMIGA :) We've just had no such computers here almost nowhere by nobody due to the restrictions and astronomical prices for most of us anyway :) So, BASIC was the first and the most common language we've learned here in PL in 90's, cheers! :)

[@majlee]

The joke was on the USAF. Our system didn't work, but the Soviets didn't even build the bomber fleet NORAD was supposed to defend against.

[@James_Knott]

I guess you haven't paid attention to the news. Occasionally a Russian bomber is tracked to close to our air space. They built the bombers but didn't get around to using them.

[@SynchroScore]

Semi-Automatic Ground Environment, precursor to the Internet.

[@Cynthia_Cantrell]

IBM: International Blow-up Machines

[@toresbe]

The SAGE did not shoot down missiles; this was exactly its problem. It was built to track aircraft, but by the time it was entered into service, inter-continental ballistic missiles had arrived which travel far too fast for SAGE to track.

[@i_like-planes]

So nostalgic

[@crackthefoundation_]

I think this gave me paranoid schizophrenia. I love the background music.

[@MrWolfSnack]

20 years later Regan comes up with "Star Wars"

[@sneakers55]

@tumsabal1 The RAMAC hard drive was 5 MB and it weighed a ton. Enough storage for a short MP3. Now, 50 years later, you can buy a USB PC terabyte backup drive for $120 plus tax.

[@gellimelli2nd732]

1:06 first touch screen

[@39717]

not true

[@richardhall9815]

Not quite, but a predecessor to the touchscreen. To put it more generally, the light pen-CRT combination was the first interactive display.

[@OlegKostoglatov]

I'm not sure if I completely agree with that, inventions are usually inspired by a need or a necessity, and during a war many needs become more pressing because of desperation. But for every useful innovation during a war, like a computer came many useless or impractical ones, like floating tanks and those rocket powered wheels that were intended to clear barbed wire. They all sounded good in theory but when put into use they either didn't do what they were intended or were dangerous.

[@SynchroScore]

@lexvalesa I'm sorry, I can't really follow what you're trying to say. There was never any standing policy to shoot down commercial aircraft that deviated from their flight plan.

[@tomp2008]

this could still be in use today

[@aashishnavaneeth8575]

U sure.....?

[@Rap111unzel]

I’m sorry but it isn’t. My Dad was one of the 7,000 engineers at IBM that worked on SAGE. The SAGE system ran in vacuum tubes, like radios and TV sets did at the time. We no longer use vacuum tubes in electronics and the SAGE was disassembled and used for sci-Fi movie props.

[@dboy122660]

Announcer: "That was one of our OWN commercial aircraft.. oh well...that happens sometimes"

[@slavabtomat]

I can see where James Cameron got the idea for SKYNET. Also, Fallout 4 Sentinel site.

[@javierjimenez798]

The card Is called hollerith

[@carlsm95]

Carl Sagan once said (I don't know the exact quote) that we live in a world of amazing scientific discoveries and technological advancements, yet a majority of people don't know shit about science and technology

[@batlin]

1:50 "with electronic control, the computer automatically adjusts the missile to meet any change in the target flight. There is NO escape." -- ok, how does this happen? Does this mean the ground computer sends position updates to the missile via some kind of radio channel, and if so how was that secured to avoid people using their best hacks to send the missile anywhere they want? Or did the missile have its own target lock somehow that could track movement? How?

[@qdaniele97]

Probably a radar guided missile: The computer point a radar beam to the target and the missile make adjustments to stay within the beam. Back in the '60 here in Italy we had a similar system but in a much smaller scale.

[@godfreypoon5148]

I expect same as the ICBMs, computer sends course correction data via radio link. Not so much trouble from haxx in those days, though it would have been secured by some coded means.

[@ewaf88]

@mnlwrnr Certainly one of the first or The first real time computer with a User interface, There is a picture from 1949/1950 of a primitive light pen so the concept had been around for quite some time. Goto Wikapedia and type in Whirlwind computer. You'll be able to read a fasinating history.

[@theneocubeguide303]

Imagine a little kid playing with that computer having no idea what he was doing and launched 1,000,000 missiles in random places 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

[@DelilahThePig]

What fascinates me most is the screen graphic. Was the computer capable of drawing or was this some sort slide?

[@DerpMuse]

+DelilahThePig its on the screen, there were punchcards with the bits already set on them which they could switch on the fly if needed. Its more like a digital slide per se

[@signdog6862]

As Justin says, they could switch out punchcards to display different geographical regions, but in effect it was an early form of graphics processing. SAGE was an extremely impressive technical accomplishment for the late 1950s.

[@tomdougherty2861]

It was a vector graphics system. The computer used an electron beam, guided by X-Y electromagnets to directly trace (draw) the graphic onto the phosphors of the screen. This is in contrast to raster scanning (used in TVs through the 1990's), where each line was scanned in a repetitive back & forth pattern.

[@RGAF1987]

The question is: Can this thing still run my AOL?

[@dapete]

I had no idea Tom Hanks was so old.

[@richardhall9815]

"How we used to shoot down missiles, with punch cards and light wands." SAGE couldn't shoot down missiles, just planes.

[@longviewcomputers]

@TheIntolerantAtheist DVD's actually!

[@jsl151850b]

@TheIntolerantAtheist Magnetic disks. Many, many platters.

[@aperezNWO]

My respects to you.

[@ALMIGHYKEEF]

That’s cool,

[@syncmaster710n14]

Your about to lunch a missile and the windows paper clip pops up and say can I help with this.

[@KRYPTOS_K5]

To be honest, it is sufficiently amazing despite the technological means of today's world would to be even much more incredible and amazing... At least to myself in Brasil... What a strange old American missile Beaumarc! It resembles a jet plane.

[@Dougan317]

the past is more scary than the future...

[@Helmutlozzi]

That's so interesting!! Thanks for sharing! :-)

[@splatm4n8]

0:11 what they did not know is that two years later America almost went into ww3

[@Nightweaver1]

That's cute. *head pats*

[@meggieriegel3576]

Thank You.

[@MightySaturn5]

@CoolConejo very well said

[@InfiniteUniverse88]

I'd Imagine a lot of people who enjoy flying their private plane across the world would have been afraid of this technology.

[@AndreeaCe]

This dude's KZbin link ended up in a freaking book... Inserting a KZbin link in a book...we've reach this far. BUT what happens when the link is not accessible anymore? And I was among those that stored web links as well...

[@askquestions]

hm, something unknown on the radar... what to do, what to do... i know, let's blow it up!

[@lawntrans]

were was those missiles on 911

[@opticlightning3353]

Doesn't really help much when your enemy planes were commercial jets.

[@dimostoianov1073]

Nice system. Obsolete before deployment.

[@OrinokawaMizuki]

SAGE is an UFO Catcher! Really, that's the whole intention of the entire system. 0:59 : "They called it a blip… Unknown Flying Object."

[@sirknight4981]

It is vitally crucial to know everything that's flying over your nation's skies when the Russians have thousands of missiles on stand by ready to fire at you. If there is a missile you are equipped, able and ready to shoot it down because of IBM's SAGE Mainframe Computer.

[@captainbackflash]

The guy at 0:25 min is thinking "So many knobs yust for showing the todays menue!"

[@prussian7]

All that with 256K of memory, IF I remember correctly.

[@jsl151850b]

@Datah0g I played the video for Sage and the audio for Popcorn. I don't get it.

[@nobeltnium]

Buy now, for only 1999. Sage, protect you family, your country, your Patriotism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . tax are not included

[@_XY_]

4k screen

[@kidyugi1]

Omg it tom hanks 00:25

[@qzorn4440]

sweet. where can i get a complete working system with missiles of course? 8~ñ .

[@MrCinimod93]

they also work great screwed to the wall lol i have a hp version screwed to my wall

[@dougat]

Blimp? Probably big fat Sammy P moving in to be CEO!

[@AlbertInSanAntonio]

a light gun? 1:09

[@syncmaster710n14]

@slicker41 thanks

[@voiceoftreason1760]

was the mario duck hunt gun also a light gun?

[@SilverSpoon_]

yes, it used to exist long before the mouse you know..

[@IntelGoesHard]

yayyyy go ibm

[@SuperWindows78]

This Logo From 1956.

[@Benzona]

But can it run crysis?

[@MrCinimod93]

i cant say nothing bad about ibm good machines

[@BurnRoddy]

Doesn't matter. If NORAD has to take them down they will.

[@cesar_8336]

Interesting that 2:39 "for a growing America" requires 2:01 exploding things.

[@SuperBunkerbuster]

1:07 Does he just tried to shot the aircraft with an early NES Zapper ? 2:34 Look at the right of "fire" : "RIP ON", WTF ? "RIP MODE ON, I hope the bomber's pilots will rest in peace" ? 2:25 This fat ass screen looks as good as the Houston Control Center's one.