A great ad explaining how the SAGE system works. Built in the 1950s, SAGE was an amazing piece of technology for its time (or any time, for that matter). It laid the groundwork for many innovations we take for granted today - computer networking, streaming video, graphical displays and interactive computing - and effectively prototyped computerized airline reservation systems.
It’s also interesting to note that the computers used in SAGE (IBM AN/FSQ-7) were the largest computers ever built; and that it cost between 8 and 12 billion dollars to construct the system, making it more expensive than the Manhattan Project. Yet it remains a relative footnote in technology history.
