The SAGE Air Defense System: A Personal History (Jacobs, 1986)

The insider’s history of SAGE, by the MIT Lincoln Laboratory Division 6 engineer who became a founding vice-president of MITRE. Published by MITRE in 1986. The source of record for the AN/FSQ-7’s specifications (49,000 tubes, 250 tons, three megawatts), the program chronology from the 1952 XD-1 contract to the July 1958 McGuire AFB activation, the duplex-computer decision, Benington’s $55-per-instruction programming estimate, and the January 1984 final shutdown. Full scan on bitsavers.org; also promoted to this site’s document archive.