On 2012 Jun 5, at 8:21 PM, Mike Loewen wrote:
On Tue, 5 Jun 2012, Fred Cisin wrote:
On Tue, 5 Jun 2012, Brent Hilpert wrote:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OEMSFx8pls
Start at 1:29:00.
Cheesy 60's movie with James Coburn. Lots of blinkenlights.
You didn't even identify it, but what else could it possibly be
but, "The
Presiden'ts Analyst"!?
Panels from the SAGE computer were used as props in that movie:
http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Q7/scifi/Analyst/
(.. yes, I did recognise them)
What I always wondered about those SAGE consoles used in the movies
is how the props people wrested them out of the Air Force so early.
SAGE had barely become fully functional when they got them (from your
pages Fox obtained them in 1966; from the MITRE site SAGE was fully
functional in 1964). Sure, some of the production was some years
older, but not very.
-
Here's a little hindsight thought experiment: if the SAGE hardware
had been reimplemented in solid-state in, say, the late 60s, would it
have been more cost-effective than running and maintaining the tube
version for the remaining 15 or so years of the system's life?
I suppose the real-politik answer is the system was obsolete by that
time anyways and it was just bureaucratic face-saving that kept it
running, but I'm thinking of the technical answer.