• Hey Guest!
    British Car Forum has been supporting enthusiasts for over 25 years by providing a great place to share our love for British cars. You can support our efforts by upgrading your membership for less than the dues of most car clubs. There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Upgraded members don't see this banner, nor will you see the Google ads that appear on the site.)
Tips
Tips

My old SAGE Computer!

Share this page

Basil

Basil

Administrator
Staff member
Boss
Offline
Well, ok it wasn't really "mine" but I was a fully qualified maintenance tech on the IBM Q7 NORAD SAGE computer. In fact I was one of only a handful of people to be fully qualified in every area of repair of this beast! This fellow has put together a terrific site which shows all the movies and TV shows in which pieces and parts of the largest computer in history were used as sci-fi props. He has it broken out by decade and if you click on a decade, then click on a show, it will show you the scenes in which the Q7 appears! Way cool! Brings a nostalgic tear to me eye!
 
That sure brings back memories.

I wasn't qualified for maintenance on the next one (WW2 Colossus at Bletchley Park - 3 years before I was born!), but it's sure an interesting bit of history. The loops of paper tape served as "memory", as there was no other way to store data while it was being processed by the vacuum tubes.

https://www.bletchleypark.org.uk/colosusfilm.rhtm

And here's my first computer. After tearing it down and rebuilding it, I guess I consider myself qualified for maintenance - at least on this one!

osborne1.jpg
 
very cool!
 
We had a female Navy admiral speak at our place one time. An older gal, she worked on the ENIAC. She claimed the word "de-bug" came about (with reference to computers) because a bug had gotten stuck in the make-break, mechanical contacts of the ENIAC.

Makes a good story, if nothing else. :laugh:

I taught with a guy who was a retired, international manager for Exxon. He had one of those Osbornes. They bought it for him at Exxon and let him keep it when he retired. He used to bring it to school and we'd all ogle it.....seems kind of silly now.

When I was a high school teacher in the 70s, one of our pricipals was a computer guy. He had the school buy a bunch of Commodores and let teachers sign them out for the Summer. I always thought he was very forward-thinking because of that.

At our college, my first desk-top was a green-screen Apple II. Then an 8086, a 286 and so forth.

My first home computer was a Timex-Sinclair. Saved all data on an audio tape and display through our TV (via RCA cables) $100 at Bamburgers.
These days, I have it as part of an engineering window display at our school
grin.gif

ts1000.jpg
 
The first computer I ever worked with was the UNIVAC 1004 courtesy of the US Army. We used it for high speed teletype communications.
 
BLAST FROM THE PAST:

swi-eLQ" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"> </embed></object>
 
aeronca65t said:
We had a female Navy admiral speak at our place one time. An older gal, she worked on the ENIAC. She claimed the word "de-bug" came about (with reference to computers) because a bug had gotten stuck in the make-break, mechanical contacts of the ENIAC.
Click to expand...

Yes, that would be Rear Adm. Grace Hopper! It was a moth as I recall. She is also one of the people responsible for developing the COBAL programming language. A very smart woman she was.

xsiVTd4" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"> </embed></object>
 
Admiral Hopper is also credited with coining the phrase "It is easier to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission". Or close to that.
 
Basil said:
aeronca65t said:
We had a female Navy admiral speak at our place one time. An older gal, she worked on the ENIAC. She claimed the word "de-bug" came about (with reference to computers) because a bug had gotten stuck in the make-break, mechanical contacts of the ENIAC.
Click to expand...

Yes, that would be Rear Adm. Grace Hopper! It was a moth as I recall. She is also one of the people responsible for developing the COBAL programming language. A very smart woman she was.

xsiVTd4" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="350"> </embed></object>
Click to expand...


Our oldest Son was on the destroyer named after her,in
Hawaii.

- Doug
 
The full quote is:

If it's a good idea, go ahead and do it. It is much easier to apologize than it is to get permission.
- Admiral Grace Hopper
 
That philosophy was (in my experience) good only for officers. I was enlisted swine and NOT encouraged to "innovate"... Things like using 35MM cameras instead of Graflex 2.25"x3.25" lumps to do the work of photojournalists was considered by superiors as UCMJ Article 32 material. 1971! It soured me on a career.
 
However, there were exceptions:

FBM (missile sub), junior (real junior) Nuke doing PM (preventive maintenance) on the Nuke plant electronics, ran the rack back in without pulling the wires clear as instructed.

Sheared a 40-wire bundle in half, plant SCRAMmed, boat stopped.

Now, in the Rickover Navy, NOTHING happened without a "procedure", with a zero....errr.....OCCIFER reading while the enlisted pukes followed instructions (they knew what to do, just had to wait for said occifer to catch up).


No procedure on this, as it had never happened.

So, this hotshot E-5 approached the CO, asks if the CO wants it fixed.

CO says, you can fix it? (so we don't have to get towed in?)

Yup, says the E-5.
How, says the CO.

Western Union Splice and shrink tubing.

CO says, go for it, but, and this is a DIRECT ORDER:
You will do 39 splices, and 39 only, and then you will call me, day or night, is that understood?


So, E-5 does 39, calls CO, CO comes back to Nuke Land, asks to be shown what the E-5 did BY the E-5, and the E-5 stands by guiding while the CO does number 40.


Close the rack, light off the reactor, complete mission.

Why did the CO do that?

Because he knew Rickover would have a screaming conniption, followed by three cows......and he could honestly report to Rickover that the repairs were completed by the CO.

End of story except for a letter of commendation in a service jacket.....
 
I rest my case. Politics. :devilgrin:

BTW: The ultrasound machines that tested ALL th' tubing that went into those Electric Boat, err... Groton, er.... boats, was INVENTED in my livingroom by me Ol' Fella and contemporaries... they were workin' for B&W.
 
DrEntropy said:
That philosophy was (in my experience) good only for officers. I was enlisted swine and NOT encouraged to "innovate"... Things like using 35MM cameras instead of Graflex 2.25"x3.25" lumps to do the work of photojournalists was considered by superiors as UCMJ Article 32 material. 1971! It soured me on a career.
Click to expand...

I was both! 10 years as enlisted, 14 as an officer. I think it all depends on who the leader is. Some lead, some don't.
 
Back
Top