COMPUTER MEMORIES, Chapter 19

TO MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
-------- FOR INDOCTRINATION ABOUT THE SAGE SYSTEM
At MIT we were locked in a room for most of each day, the building entrances blocked by guards, and we were not permitted to make notes of any kind. They were going to make sure those secrets did not leave the room. We were studying a prototype of a huge computerized air defense system. A little later, when it became publicly known as the Whirlwind” (built before IBM or UNIVAC computers were readily available), that was connected with special RADAR stations out on Cape Cod. At least we did get to see Cape Cod as the leaves were turning color in the fall.

When I saw part of the Whirlwind Computer in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC, some years later, it did sort of convince me, that I was “there” in the beginning of the computer industry.

Back in Santa Monica, after the building was built, and the SAGE Air Defense System computer was installed, part of my job was to make presentations and conduct indoctrination sessions for military personnel, and civilian contractors involved with the Air Defense System.

I will always remember taking 15 or 20 people at a time into the central computer room that is now replaced by the little thumb-nail-size chip you hear about these days. I could say, “Look over there, it’s adding, now over here it is dividing, … …” Must be a billion to 1 reduction in size, about that much increase in speed and power, and that much reduction in “cost per computer function” from 1956, to today!

Several years ago I had a problem with the monitor on my desktop computer. When I called the repair people, they wondered if I really knew how a monitor was supposed to act. I informed them I had first worked with a computer monitor at MIT in 1956, most likely before their mother was born. And twenty-five years ago, I sold computer terminals for a living. Well, that’s like asking a Model-T Ford mechanic about your new Cadillac, but at least I knew a little about such things.