[Erasmus]

With all the critical computer terminals dealing in life or death matters, were they REALLY allowed to smoke in there?

SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Equipment) was the first computerized continent-wide air defense system, designed and first operated in the late 1950s.

On the operator's console, there's an ashtray at the rear left of the desk surface.

Go the the Wiki on the SAGE computer system to see it. (I tried linking to the image as I have always done, but today it comes up on my preview as a red X, so no embedded image in this post. Sorry.)

[Robert A Cook PE]

With all the critical computer terminals dealing in life or death matters, were they REALLY allowed to smoke in there?

SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Equipment) was the first computerized continent-wide air defense system, designed and first operated in the late 1950s.

On the operator's console, there's an ashtray at the rear left of the desk surface.

Go the the Wiki on the SAGE computer system to see it.

If you take the “historical” Cape Canaveral tour - the one that goes inside the old missile launch stations from the first launches through the Appolo era ... You'll see the desks and chairs left “as-was” ... including cigarette butts still inside the original ash trays beside each console in the launch control rooms.

[Shalmaneser]

Those SAGE consoles also had built in, automobile-type cigarette lighters. Really! In this photo, you can see the lighter socket next to the ashtray. It's on the far left-hand side of the console, just below the UNIT STATUS selector.

[boatbums]

SAGE (Semi Automatic Ground Equipment) was the first computerized continent-wide air defense system, designed and first operated in the late 1950s. On the operator's console, there's an ashtray at the rear left of the desk surface.

I went to http://www.computermuseum.li/Testpage/IBM-SAGE-computer.htm and they list the technical specs as:

Technical Description

Size: CPU (50 x 150 feet, each); consoles area (25 x 50 feet) (total system=20,000 square feet)

Weight: 250 tons (500,000 lbs)

Architecture: duplex CPU, no interrupts, 4 index registers, Real Time Clock

Word Length: 32 bits

Memory: magnetic core (4 x 64K word); Magnetic Drum (150K word); 4 IBM Model 729 Magnetic Tape Drives (~100K words ea.); all systems with parity checking

Memory Cycle Time: 6us

I/O: CRT display, keyboard, light gun, realtime serial data (teletype, 1300 bps modem, voice line)

Performance: 75KIPS (single-address)

Technology: vacuum tubes (60,000); diodes (175,000); transistors (13,000)

Power Consumption: about 3 Megawatts

Compared to the computers we have in just a laptop these days, makes the ones they had back then seem HUGE. I remember our "dumb terminals" spit out data at 300 bps then 1200 later on. It is amazing how far we've come technologically. What started out taking up 20,000 square feet now can be managed in a small closet or maybe smaller!