Oral History of Robert Everett - Computer History Museum

Hendrie: We have to pause now. And we want to continue from that comment.
END OF TAPE FOUR
Hendrie: You just had mentioned the joke about using SAGE for air traffic control.
Oral History of Robert Everett
Everett: So anyway, there was some effort in that direction and that led into other things, to work for the
FAA. At first it was all done for the Air Force. But after awhile, it transferred, and we worked directly for
the FAA, and that's been going on ever since. We, in addition to holding the SAGE's hand and modifying
it and improving it, there was the Super-SAGE thing to work on. And the SAC used some Super-SAGE
Q32s, I think they were, the transistorized SAGE machines for managing the offensive business. We did
some work on that. Then other things came up, the virtues of having a computer, a digital general-purpose
computer, in the middle of these command and control systems was obvious to people. So people started
building those things, and we gradually started picking up work for different people in the Air Force and
others. It just grew from there. I used to think of it as a two-dimensional matrix: in one dimension were the
particular technical skills that you had, and in the other direction were the particular skills that you had in
the applications. So if you had Air Force Air Defense Command with the technology that we had for that,
you could move over and do something else for the Air Force and fill that in. Or you could take some of
the technologies you developed for the Air Defense Command and go pick some new sponsor. So by
moving in this exact fashion you could gradually fill this whole matrix. And we've done pretty well at that.
Hendrie: Do you think the FAA would have ended up with more success in their air traffic control system
if they'd adopted the SAGE system even though it looked incredibly expensive at the time, considering the
amount of money they've spent since then?
Everett: I doubt it.
Hendrie: Just wasn't applicable enough.
Everett: I think we did air traffic control out of a SAGE sector up in the North. And it worked. It could
have been done. But the technology was moving rapidly enough so they really made you start over.
Hendrie: Okay. I know you read a lot about the difficulties the FAA has had managing their…
Everett: I thought you were going to say, “Would they have been better off without the MITRE's help?” I
could never say that.
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