Cold War Swipesmanship

[beamjockey]

Recently I contributed to a discussion on the Restricted Data blog, and decided I should expand upon it here.

Wikipedia tells us, "Swipe is a comics term that refers to the intentional copying of a cover, panel, or page from an earlier comic book or graphic novel without crediting the original artist

Comments

[mmcirvin]

SAGE eventually became a Hollywood star:

http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Q7/

[beamjockey]

As a Sixties TV watcher, I loved nothing (except for miniature effects involving spaceships or submarines) better than blinking lights. So I have noticed some of those components recurring across various series.

Still I had no idea those were parts of SAGE!

I'm going to have fun exploring that site.

The AN/FSQ-7 appears to be the Model T or DC-3 of TV computer props! I wonder how some components wound up on TV as early as 1966, while their sisters were presumably still protecting the nation from Soviet bombers.

[derekl1963]

By 1963, SAGE installations were starting to be decommissioned, and it was pretty much gone entirely by the end of the decade. (Part of the USAF's gradual, and largely unremarked, drawdown of it's continental air defense system.) So presumably those bits were surplused as in light of diminishing requirements.

The oddest thing I ever saw as set dressing was a submarine TDC in a 2008 episode of Dr Who... One of these days I've got to dig around and see when the Brits abandoned the TDC.

[mmcirvin]

Actually, the last of the SAGE installations weren't deactivated until near the end of 1983. I worked on the McChord AFB SAGE from January to August 1983, when it was finally turned off.

[mmcirvin]

The thing that tickles me is that these ancient computer parts have continued to represent high technology and futurism up to the present.

[whl]

I have noticed of late that we are passing OUT of the age of using tape drives as set dressing to say "Computer!". Some productions are just using terminals, others are stuck in the minicomputer era of 10 linear feet or so of head high cabinets, mostly without lights.

[mmcirvin]

The heyday of that was definitely the 1970s, before "keyboard with CRT" was the image in most people's heads. But it lingered on in the background for a long time, I suppose.