The Cyberpunk Genre as Social and Technological Analysis
I once taught a Freshman seminar at New York University in Information System Management (ISM). The course was introductory and only two credits, so I felt we needed a focused yet comprehensive set of analytical concepts to shape our discussions and assignments about ISM in the modern world. I decided to use the “cyberpunk” genre […]
SAGE, SABRE and the Airline Industry
Military funding lead to the invention of the modem and other data communications technologies for a North American defense system. This grid of radar and other sensors connected to central computers with over a million miles of telephone line. Its headquarters would later be located deep within the Colorado Cheyenne Mountains and be the model […]
How IT Came to Rule the World, 1.4: SAGE and Early Electronic Computing
The SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment) system conceived at MIT and built at IBM’s Poughkeepsie, New York facilities helped transform the computer from a bulky, slow, vacuum-tube switched numerical processor into a generalized, software-driven, transistor-enabled, media-enhanced computer with an accompanying communications system able to send digital data over telephone lines.