Posted on 05/21/2010 6:56:37 PM PDT by VaRepublican
just looking for other SAGE folks who might be still around. My dad passed away to soon but I just found out he was an original member of sage, never said a word.
For those of you who, like me, had no idea what SAGE was...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semi_Automatic_Ground_Environment
God bless your Dad, we owe so much we have today to guys like him. (I hope we aren’t remembered as the generation that squandered it all!)
FRegards
I did a little bit of time on the DEW line, but not SAGE. They both were early warning radar detection fences. DEW protected the continent from the North and SAGE from the NE. A lot of manual work that most kids currently in the service wouldn’t even have the math skills to comprehend.
Dang was hoping to get more feedback from members. I know they are getting old now prolly not monitoring FR.
Yeah, SAGE is going back in time.
His “cover” was an F111 fuel systems mechanic. Damn dad I wished he would have said something.
Well, bump it up every now and again. I've run into a couple of old 486L veterans in the past.
(Mind you, when I did my few months up on DEW, it was all manned by contractors...the only reason I had to go up there was to do mobile depot maintenance on the troposcatter equipment...spent 3 months in Greenland...me and a couple of other folks drank the island dry of Bailey's LOL)
God bless you and your family, and my condolences.
Your father worked in an under-appreciated field during the warm part of the Cold War.
His duty was not flashy and glamorous, but often difficult and frustrating. He protected me and mine when I was a child and teen. I thank God for your father's service.
As an Airman, I salute him.
/johnny
Sorry for your loss......your Dad as were many in the military back then keenly aware of what secrets were worth back then. I traveled to many of the DEW line sites . Yet I was assigned to SAC back then.
Such as your fathers efforts and silence won the cold war !
Stay safe !
Besides what SAGE did directly in defence of the United States, it also set the ground work for a lot of later technologically based defence initiatives in the US and its allies, as well as being incredibly significant in the development of the computer industry. You have cause to be very proud of your father, for all sorts of reasons.
Those darned Russians kept us keen on our technology.
yup familiar with that page.
So anyways I’ll repost in the morning and see if I can get any SAGE bites. thanks for talking with me...
I worked on SAGE systems while working for the Burroughs Corp in the 1960’s. Also worked on BUIC and ALRI at the same company.
The SAGE equiment was duplexed Vacuum Tubes and the other were Solid State.
All are radar processors on the ground and in the air.
Any chance you my dad, alton smith?
When I was in high school in Kingston, I went to the IBM facility where the SAGE system computer was located. It was row after row of racks from floor to as high as a man could reach - all filled with vacuum tubes. The building was enormous, had more than one story, and had chutes for down units to be dropped into, where they landed in the repair area.
It was the ultimate “space heater”, in that it took up a lot of space and the power consumption must have been gargantuan.
All in all, it was a sight guaranteed to impress a student. Your father worked on a most remarkable system, the cutting edge computer of its time.
sorry, any chance you knew my dad?
My dad was “59 through ‘64 ish
This is right out of a 1961 or 62 yearbook for the 25th NORAD Region. The Mission and History:
“The Seattle Air Defense Sector is one of the three SAGE sectors comprising of the 25th Air Division. Activated in its present location on 8 January 1958, the Section Director Center was turned over to the Air force in 1958. The huge IBM-built computers were installed in January 1959 and testing of the electronic computers and the air defense system was begun in August 1959. It was completed in early 1960.
When the Direction Center became operational, 1 March 1960, it was the first operational SAGE Center in the Pacific Northwest, and one of three Direction Centers co-located with its Division Combat Center. The Seattle NORAD Sector was established on 1 March 1960 and the operational capability for its area of responsibility was assumed on that date.”
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