COMPUTER MEMORIES, Chapter 21

BEFORE THE MOUSE
For the SAGE system we needed something like today’s “Computer Mouse,” but it had not yet been invented. Instead they filled a “case” of a 1/4” drill with electronics, with a lighted pointer in place of the drill bit.

The “light gun” would be pointed at a RADAR spot (representing an airplane) on the “TV Screen.” Pull the trigger, and the computer recognized the exact spot being pointed at, and that was a particular place on a map, or in the sky, as recognized by the RADAR system. Then, believe it or not we looked in the computer memory at all the flight plans for that part of the sky. If no one had said they were going to be flying at that particular location, at that particular altitude, in that specific direction, at that point in time, fighter planes were scrambled to identify the plane. Sometimes they read the numbers on the tail of the airplane. At night they used a spot light, much like a cop stopping a speeder. Really.

Several people claim to have invented the mouse, but the first time I saw one, was in the mid 1960s at Stanford Research Institute, in Palo Alto. It was a hand sized box, with two inch wheels, so it could be moved in any direction.

THE IBM ABACUS
Almost fifty years ago, at RAND, while I was helping unload the two huge trucks it took to haul the IBM 704 Computer, there was one box too many, and it did not have a label. Inside was a Red Firebox, complete with a glass door and a small hammer, and a sign that said, “In case of trouble, break glass.” Behind the glass was an abacus. No one thought IBM would have such a sense of humor. I had every intention of taking that home with me, but would you believe it, some thief stole it before I could appropriate it.