Sexy computer art, circa 1956

Sageeeee Sometime between 1956-1958 an unknown IBM employee wrote a punchcard program that displayed the above pin-up girl on the screens of the US military's two billion dollar Semi-Automatic Ground Environment (SAGE) computers. Some say that the program was a diagnostic tool that showed the pin-up as a data transfer test. Others contend that it was just geek fun. The Atlantic's Benj Edwards tells the story of what was one of the first pieces of figurative computer art. "The Never-Before-Told Story of the World's First Computer Art (It's a Sexy Dame)"

David Pescovitz is Boing Boing's co-editor/managing partner. He's also a research director at Institute for the Future. On Instagram, he's @pesco.

MORE: art • computers • illustration

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Hard core geeks don’t care about the pinup, they find the computer itself sexy. See http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Q7/ for a nice list of on-screen appearances by these things over the years.
bzishi

I’ve made vector drawings on an oscilloscope I had hooked up to an 8088 (for fun to see if I could write a display driver and for credit in an electronics course). I wonder if this was similar.
- technogeekagain
  
  Yes, basic vector graphics is basically D-to-A outputs hooked up to the X, Y, and gain (brightness) inputs of on oscilloscope.
  
  Storage tubes are a slightly different animal, but I don’t think that’s what we’re looking at.
technogeekagain

I want to know who did the first teletype nude. (Typed characters, sometimes overtyped, as greyscale.)
- Quiche de Resistance
  
  teletype is new technology…
  
  -… — — -… …
PhosPhorious

Look at the Global Allocation Maps on her!
vonbobo

Add this to the long list of new tech being used for male curiosity.

“3D printer, what is that? /youtube. Oh, they are printing nude women… of course”
- http://pulse.yahoo.com/_OAUXAA362EXWLYVMPJOKLFB5JQ Incipient Madness
  
  That would make Weird Science just a little less weird. I never could figure out back in the day how the computer was supposed to physically create something.
  - vonbobo
    
    If you get a chance… shower with them.
DevinC

The SAGE project is really really great
(for porn)
It defends us from the Commies we all hate
(for porn)
Our CRT’s round and bright
(for porn)
To track planes in midflight
(for porn)
We watch the skies all day and night!
(FOR PORN)
pjcamp

No wonder that Evans and Sutherland was always sticky.

I need to go wash now.
CLamb

Even more amazing is that SAGE was used through 1983.