Product Details

• Format: NTSC
• Region: All Regions
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: Quality Information Publishers, Inc.
• Run Time: 1956 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B001ENA19M
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #491,641 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

On Guard! The Story of SAGE is the amazing tale of a wacky precursor to the Star Wars nuclear defense plan. SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) was the first computer system used for American air defense during the Cold War. SAGE was built to prevent enemy bombers from coming unnoticed into US airspace. Images of children playing or sleeping punctuate the reasons for such tight security. The computer is astonishingly huge by modern standards, taking up two floors of IBM's SAGE building, and containing 56,000 electron tubes. The computer is shown being maintained by well-dressed workers as though it were the queen in a beehive. A veritable museum of old technology, the film contains priceless images of vintage electronics. On Guard! The Story of SAGE is a fun and informative classic film that deserves to be seen.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An essential history lesson to put modern technology into perspective!, January 28, 2009

By 

Datan0de "Tech Freak" (Tampa, FL USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The History of Science & Technology: On Guard! The Story of SAGE DVD (1956) (DVD)

To be clear, I don't own this DVD, so I cannot comment on the quality of the transfer, extras, etc. However, I do have a copy of "On Guard!: The Story of SAGE" and have enjoyed it several times.

It's no exaggeration to say that this movie will change your perception of modern computer technology, and bring into sharp focus just how dazzlingly advanced even that old 486 rusting away in your garage is.

"On Guard!" gives a wonderful overview of the SAGE (AN/FSQ-7) computer system - the largest computer ever built and the apex of pre-transistor technology. This mind-bogglingly complex system, which was a key component of North American air defense, was nothing short of epic in scale, requiring teams of workers to maintain and operate it and a control room very much reminiscent of the command center in War Games. Tasked with monitoring US airspace and coordinating threat responses, these amazing computers, for all their size and importance, possessed less raw processing power than a $5 solar-powered calculator. Yes, really.

The last SAGE installation was decommissioned in the early 1980's, but you've probably seen pieces of it in movies and on television- large cabinets filled with switches and flashing lights, and round CRTs with light pens (a technology invented for SAGE) have found their way to movies and programs from "The Six Million Dollar Man" to "Lost".

For anyone interested in the Cold War or the history of computers, "On Guard!" is a marvelous bit of Cold War propaganda that gives one a keener understanding of just how much the invention of the lowly transistor changed the world.