On Guard! The Story of SAGE (ca. 1956)

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• published: 02 Aug 2014
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"Protection comes high...sky high. Today we must be on guard in the sky when it comes to protecting our resources...the national resources that are so precious to us." Cut to a shot of children playing at the school playground. There is nothing unusual about On Guard! — it's an ordinary film, one of many thousands produced by military contractors to boast of their participation in the defense of our nation. And just this very ordinariness is what makes it interesting, because it proves how central military and defense consciousness was to mid-century culture, and speaks to the magnitude of the effort to enlist technology in fighting the Cold War. It's also a highly ephemeral film, since the technology it reveals became quickly outdated as intercontinental ballistic missiles replaced bombers as vehicles for the delivery of nuclear weapons. On Guard! introduces the SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment), a heavily computerized early warning system designed to guard against enemy aircraft. For its time, this was novel technology — room-sized computers and giant "Displayscopes" — and the film seeks to humanize it to a technologically unsophisticated public. "You are listening to the heartbeat of the SAGE computer. Every instrument in this room is constantly monitoring, testing, pulse-taking, controlling." Cutting back to images of children playing and a little girl sleeping with her doll, it asks "what better reason for an electronic defense?" and tells us that "the future of America is secure." Interesting for its glimpses of huge mainframe computers maintained by well-tailored women and white-shirted men, On Guard! reminds us of the close relations between the computer industry and defense establishment throughout this century. ENIAC, the first stored-program digital computer, was created as part of a World War II defense project. Much of IBM's research and development activity has been supported by the Department of Defense. And, as many of us know, the Internet was developed with funding from DOD's Advanced Research Products Agency. Contains several great old computer shots. 00:00 LS missile in the middle of a valley, mountains in the background One missile is fired, camera follows it into the sky B/W planes in formation CU kids on playground 00:53 CU color, school bell on outside brick wall School children run, get in line to march inside CU Air Force plane (bombers) in sky Mushroom cloud from nuclear explosion (B&W;) MCU facade, IBM building, people walking into building Men working, SAGE computer Model of IBM, nucleus is sage computer CU SAGE, magnetic drums, tapes and cores Radar, Texas Tower, ships, aircraft 02:37 CU Air Force man at desk CU of computer data card CU hand inserting packet of data cards, pushing button Computer sorts cards CU model of IBM 03:20 HEADQUARTERS NEW YORK AIR DEFENSE SECTOR MLS Direction Center, square white building, no identification CU display scope, yellow disk center VS blurry footage of computer printer in action, woman monitoring it VS/LS room with SAGE computer 04:18 2 men standing together, camera pans down to ledger they are looking at Camera pans down to DISPLAY SCOPE MLS dark of man with headphones monitoring display scope (huge old CRT video terminal with large circular yellow screen) 04:42 Model of interior of IBM - across SAGE MCU dark, men in display scope room CU sideview of man with headphones and mouthpiece, sitting in front of display scope CU images in display scope CU finger pushing buttons CU display scope MCU dark of men in headphones and mouthpieces in front of display scope B/W MCU Air Force plane in sky B/W MCU three missiles, they are fired Back to men in front of display scopes Producer: IBM Corporation, Military Products Division Sponsor: IBM Corporation, Military Products Division MADE IN COOPERATION WITH U.S. DOD, USAF, BOEING AIRCRAFT CO.