ABSTRACT
Once intruders were spotted, Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) could also call out interceptor aircraft. The system “was designed to control the interceptor after takeoff, direct it to the target, and bring it back to a final approach to its runway.” A SAGE descendant, the 465L system, was built for the Air Force and tucked away into the bowels of Colorado’s Cheyenne Mountain, home today of North American Air Defense. SAGE was the first system to innovate computer time sharing, where multiple computer consoles could simultaneously share the same machine. When SAGE operators used a light gun to touch a monitor screen and transfer information into or out of computer memory, it was the first time humans directly manipulated a computer. The bottom line to the outpouring of “SAGE effects” upon the new electronics industry seems to have been this: create an exceptional tool and exceptional people will flock to it and use it to create still other exceptional tools.
