In 1955, I was transferred from Western Electric's Radio Works in NC to Defense Projects in downtown New York City to work as an engineer in the Ground/Air Radio department. Western Electric was part of AT&T then and had a prime contract to implement the nation's first automated air defense system called SAGE (Semi-Automatic Ground Environment). This was during the cold-war years when the threat existed that the Soviet Union might send hundreds of bombers to the US. Air defense had to be speeded up and computers in their infancy were the answer. Everything we worked on was classified and on the leading edge of technology. Among the "firsts" was the world's largest computer (AN-FSQ-7) built by IBM (google it). It was known as WHIRLWIND when developed in prototype by MIT and Harvard and had 55,000 vacuum tubes. It cost $238 million but can't begin to compare to the PC on your desk today. Also during this era, magnetic core memory was developed and digital data at 1300 bits-per-second was first used to transmit radar data to computers and digital data to radio sites for directing planes and missiles. Those were exciting days.

My first assignment was working with a team that proposed where the Air Force build UHF Ground/Air radio sites across the nation. The Air Force required interceptor jets to receive UHF data and voice communications at 5000' and above from 23 Direction Centers across the nation. It was a tedious study using topographic maps and a technique developed by MIT to determine theoretical radio coverage. To verify the validity of our study we ran live flight tests with Air Force jets to prove that we were on track

My next assignment was planning computer communications to seaward elements in the SAGE system, such as Texas Tower radar sites off the coast and tropo-scatter radio shore stations for data exchange with radar picket ships and airborne radar platforms. During this time I commuted on the Long Island Railroad with an Air Force officer who worked in our office and often flew weekends on an Airborne Early Warning radar plane patrolling off the coast. This gave me first-hand knowledge of how well our computer communications were working.

Other than commuting, which was tough, my years working in New York City were fun. I traveled a lot to visit SAGE contractors such as IBM, RCA, Burroughs and GE, but commuting over 30 miles to work daily on the train and subway finally wore me down. On the day I went to turn in my resignation and inform my boss that I was accepting a job at the GE Satellite Division in Valley Forge PA, he asked if I would accept a transfer to AT&T's new Air Defense Planning Group in Colorado Springs. I was estatic and accepted the transfer immediately. We ended up falling in love with Colorado, including the job, which was to continue engineering the SAGE system to work on the survivable AUTOVON switched network and plan communications for a new NORAD backup system called BUIC (Back-Up Interceptor Control).

After several years in Colorado, plus a classified transmission engineering assignment in Hawaii, Guam, Philippines and Japan during the Vietnam war, I was transferred to AT&T Government Communications in Washington, DC where I created over 100 software programs, managed a network consulting group and was liason with the White House Office of Telecommunications Policy. I retired in 1984 after an enjoyable 33-year career in the Bell System. It was sad to see the company break up.

All past computer articles by Dave Wallace can be seen at http://always-online.com/dave/dwindex.htm