Stories about SAGE (for SAGE technical information - use you brouser's "BACK" function to return here)
Stories about SAGE
- Lincoln Lab's Sage History, from Ignacio Menendez Jan 2022
- Factoids which needs a home - Apr 2014
- from a "scope dope" - Gary Odle, Comment from Joe Romito - Mar 2014
- Western Electric activities
- a short letter by a user (Chris McWilliams)
- a major description by a programmer/engineer (Les Earnest)
- a news group posting about testing SAGE
- from an early Operational Planner - Frank Mertely
- SAGE Locations
Factoids which needs a home - Apr 2014
Origins of the Internet
The first recorded description of the social interactions that could be enabled through networking was a series of memos written by J.C.R. Licklider of MIT in August 1962 discussing his "Galactic Network" concept. He envisioned a globally interconnected set of computers through which everyone could quickly access data and programs from any site. In spirit, the concept was very much like the Internet of today. Licklider was the first head of the computer research program at DARPA,4 starting in October 1962. While at DARPA he convinced his successors at DARPA, Ivan Sutherland, Bob Taylor, and MIT researcher Lawrence G. Roberts, of the importance of this networking concept.Professor Martin Campbell-Kelly says that
a) J.C.R. Licklider was a major player in the machine/human interaction of SAGE
b) the massive SAGE effort put the US way ahead of the Brits in computersMany people say that the IBM profits from SAGE paid for IBM System 360 development.
from a "scope dope" Gary Odle - December 2003
Comment from Joe Romito - Mar 2014
I just read your article on the weaknesses of the SAGE system and agree with you whole-heartedly. I was a Weapons Controller (i.e., "scope dope") at the Duluth SAGE site from 1975-76 and again for the year 1978. I always marvelled that in our SNOWTIME excercises (SAC/NORAD Operational Weapons Testing and Evaluation ... send B-52's and KC-135's north and have them attack us) that the attackers always came in high and slow, and right in the middle of our radar coverage, neatly avoiding our blank areas. Our "kill" percentage would be about 99%. Commanders would praise us, nice reports would be written, and I would be angry that the whole thing had been a sham.
After four years in air defense I figured that if the Air Force wasn't going to take it seriously, I didn't need to be a part of it. I left the Air Force in 1979 to pursue other interests.
Controlling fighters in SAGE was fun ... like being paid to play video games .. . but no way for a responsible adult to spend their career.
Gary Odle
One of the earlier posts on the SAGE website used the SNOWTIME acronym incorrectly. The term stood for SAC-NORAD Operational Weapons Testing Involving Military Electronics. Its primary purpose was not to test SAGE, but rather to test ground-based Army air defense weapons in the US, which in the late 1960s were mostly Nike-Hercules missile units stationed around major population centers and military facilities. In the late 1960s there were roughly 15 defended areas around the country. I was most familiar with the ones on the west coast -- Seattle, San Francisco, and LA. The exercise was conducted annually, against one defended area at a time. It was conducted late night-early morning to minimize interference with the FAA's air traffic control radars. In the exercise SAC aircraft would fly against the area using their maximum radar jamming capabilities. And the Nike units were allowed to use almost all of their full wartime countermeasures systems to counter the jamming. As someone who served in the San Francisco Nike brigade 1968-1970, I know that it was usually a humbling experience for the Army. I seem to recall that typical results were that Nike units would defeat at best one third of the attacking aircraft. Keep in mind that the Nike mission was to shoot down attacking Soviet bomber flights, each of which was carrying multiple thermonuclear bombs. If just one bomber in a flight completed its mission, the target city would likely have been destroyed. The sad reality was that Nike-Hercules radars were using technology from the 1950s and probably would have been no match for attacking enemy bombers in an actual wartime situation. Fortunately, we never found out for certain if this was the case.
Western Electric activities
From Robert F. Martina - SAGE Test Director
Western Electric, part of AT&T then, was awarded the contract as system integrator for the entire SAGE System. Close to 500 WE engineers went through SAGE computer/radar school at MITRE Hanscom Field, 15 at a time. --They were responsible for the testing of all sectors in the country and turning the system over to the Airforce. Five test teams of apx. 50 each (25 at radar and interceptor bases; 25 at the direction/computer centers) were deployed at a time. Sector integration and certification testing took 9 months.--Some engineers were left behind to upgrade the system as changes came from Rand/SDC and MITRE as well as the radar contractors. Problems with software and hardware were tracked and improvements suggested. Simulated inputs mixed with live data was one innovation made/programmed by this team. Alumni of this organization still meet annually, 2002 in Boston, to share a few memories of life on the road along way from the flag pole, the excitement of running 12 intercept missions a day and trips to find the source of permanent echos used for azimuth registration of radars. Many of these engineers left WECo after the project phased down in the early 60's and became part of many other organizations, particularly NASA and its contractors. R.F. Martina. ( a 5 sector man ) Senior Test Director
- Great Falls and Phoenix Air Defense SectorsUpdate 10/28/02 - WECo SAGE reunion ... will be held in Cody WY in 03.
Subject: Computer Museum Hi Ed,
The visit to the museum was quite enjoyable. They have all kinds of computer equipment in there, much of which cost $millions to build. I was especially impressed with some of the Cray super computer equipment. Dag Spicer was very helpful and informative on all the various eras of computer development their display covers.They have 2 SAGE consoles (Intercept and Weapons Tech) which are very similar to the ones I worked on. They also have core and drum memories, plus a control panel and racks showing the thousands of tubes it took to run SAGE. I explained to Dag how we used to spend a lot of the quiet midnight shifts playing "Battleship" over the extensive communication setup we had. Also mentioned the problems we had getting the various radar site precisely enough located in the computer to avoid getting multiple returns from just one aircraft.
Also, when the system started loading up on data the "frame" time (time to run through entire program) kept getting longer. When it reached 15 seconds, we would start dumping data. We avoided that by controlling the data input to use only that necessary for the task at hand.
I went through some of their pictures, and am trying to identify some of the people I recognized.
This is an extended e-mail from Les Earnest (February 20, 1999)
(Table of Contents and formatting added by Ed Thelen)
Attached FYI are some articles on SAGE and related C3 systems that I wrote about ten years ago for the Usenet newsgroup comp.risks.
-Les Earnest
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SAGE-BOMARC risks
Testing the fire-up decoder
Duplexed for reliability
The C3 legacy, Part 1: top-down goes belly-up recursively
The C3 legacy, Part 2: a SAGE beginning
COUNTERMEASURES
HARDENING
PLACEMENT
The C3 legacy, Part 3: Command-control catches on
The seductive image
The C3 legacy, Part 4: A gaggle of L-systems
The C3 legacy, Part 5: Subsystem I
The C3 Legacy, Part 6: Feedback
Was there ever a command and control system that worked?
SAGE revisited
From a rec.aviation.military posting
(beginning of original message)Subject: Re: F-102/F-106
From: waltbj@oneimage.com
Date: 1998/11/15
Newsgroups: rec.aviation.military
tomnaylor@mindspring.com (Tom Naylor) wrote:...
Ah, yes, Data Link! I was in the 326 FIS at Richards Gebaur AFB ( Dicky Goober) known on the air as "RG Tower". I flew a lot of test missions with the SAGE center there tryiong to debug data link. The original setup was 'frequency division' D/L, know as 'fiddle'. And fiddle we did, for several years, until they gave it up as hopelessly unreliable and replaced it with 'tiddle', Time Division D/L. This worked amazingly well, so much so that R/T almost faded from use. We would give and armaments sfaety and oxygen check on initial contact and the SAGE controller would acknowledge our call.Simultaneously he would transmit to us a standardized test message. If it did its thing properly we were receiving valid signals and would then "Follow Dolly" The next call we made would be 'Judy' (taking control) and "MA" - mission accomplished" or rarely (102 being by now rather reliable) "MI" - missed intercept.
From hating Fiddle we grew to love Tiddle because the silence was so refreshing.
But getting to that point was aggravating . .
I well remember one of the first test missions with SAGE. I spent most of my time aloft Essing madly back and forth chasing the D/L steering command dot. Back on the ground we dissected the mission with the SAGE controller and several programmers. At last we discovered there had been no allowance made for aircraft turn radius, consequently I was overshooting all turns by as much as 6 to 8 miles. The radar would see me out of position the FSQ7 computer would issue a correction which of course I would again overshoot . . .But like I said after awhile it got pretty good. Especially after they diaabled the RTB (return to base) function for the nuclear-armed BOMARC missile. (One free spirit during a CPX decied to see what would happen if he RTB'd a BOMARC - the notional missile did a 180 and headed back home!)
BTW the FSQ7 at the time was the world's finest computer with its 100 KB (kilobyte) core memory. And its vacuum tubes and 15 tons of airconditioning power! The computer I'm typing this on is several orders of magnitude more capable and dozens of magnitudes more reliable!
Speaking of vacuum tubes, I am pretty sure the IRSTS system fro the MG10 was solid-state. It's only break mode I ever saw was loss of LN2 coolant.
Walt BJ ftr plt ret
(end of original message)
from an early Operational Planner - Frank Mertely February 2004
I was one of a group of 5 or 6 guys in a special project to prepare the operational and implementation plan to install the [SAGE] system in the AIr Defense Command way back in 1954 in Colorado Springs. We had a large task, but with the help of a lot of people we installed the first computer at Fort Dix, NJ on schedule. This would not have been possible without a lot of groundbreaking effort by the Lincoln Lab people, Western Electric, IBM and a whole lot of other conractors.
My task was to prepare the budget for equipment, facilites, communications and personnel for submission to the folks at the Pentagon. Since it was a National Security Council priority, it was a little easier to gain approvals there and the Congress.
I made many trips from Colorado Springs to New York City for coordination meetings. I stayed with the project for about two years and then went to the Air Command and Staff College and many other places after that.
I would like to make one comment on siting the facilites. I noted that some one stated that we sited the facilities on SAC bases where the had the best O~Clubs. That was not the case when we started .Our first priority was to site away from major target areas and availabilty of communications and to take advantage of existing facilites where possible.That is why you see places like Fort Lee, Topsham, Fort Custer and Truax Field. A number of ADC bases were selected. Among them were: Duluth, Grand Forks , K.I. Sawyer and others that were programmed for ADC interceptor bases.
Unfortunately, when General Lemay dispersed the bomber and tanker forces a few years later some of these bases took on the SAC flavor and did increase the vulnerability of the Sage system.
It is too bad that the transistor did not come along sooner as we could have put them underground at much lower cost since we would not have needed all that space for the computer, less air conditioning and back-up power. So we had to live with the technolgy that we had .
Regardless, it was a great system and a challenge to get us into the computer age. It was a tough job and it was nice to associate with so many skilled and dedicted people.
Thanks for helping me to recall my work on the system. Keep up the good work.
Best regards.
Frank
Locations of SAGE systems
as per http://www.radomes.org/museum/DC-1: McGuire AFB, NJ DC-2: Stewart AFB, NY DC-3 / CC-1: Hancock Field, NY DC-4: Fort Lee AFS, VA DC-5: Topsham AFS, ME (blockhouse demolished) DC-6: Fort Custer, MI DC-7 / CC-2: Truax Field, WI DC-8: Richards-Gebaur AFB, MO DC-9: Gunter AFB, AL DC-10: Duluth IAP, MN DC-11: Grand Forks AFB, ND DC-12 / CC-3: McChord AFB, WA DC-13: Adair AFS, OR DC-14: K. I. Sawyer AFB, MI DC-15: Larson AFB, WA DC-16: Stead AFB, NV DC-17: Norton AFB, CA DC-18: Beale AFB, CA DC-19 / CC-4*: Minot AFB, ND (* CC-4 blockhouse built, but AN/FSQ-8 never installed) DC-20: Malmstrom AFB, MT DC-21: Luke AFB, AZ DC-22: Sioux City AFS, IA
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Last updated December 2, 2003