19 October 2012

Spoiler alert: we drop the bomb

An adorable gallery of improbable Hollywood computers doing improbable things. The star of the piece is a decommissioned IBM AN/FSQ-7 Combat Direction Central, part of the SAGE radar defenses of the Eisenhower-Kennedy era—you know, the times back when the operator's console had an integrated ashtray. Parts of the defanged AN/FSQ-7, Q7 for short and cute, appeared with O. J. Simpson, Woody Allen, and babealicous scientist Lee Meriwether—but not with Peter Sellars in Dr. Strangelove. That part was filled by an IBM 7090/94.
...we find it rather amusing that in the one movie where the AN/FSQ-7 would make perfect sense, you don't find the AN/FSQ-7.
At least it was one the scientific systems, not one of IBM's business mainframes.

Bits