Over the next few months I hope to be contributing regular posts to this blog about fictional computers. In the first instance I will be looking at those machines which are featured in science fiction movies, but in the future I will probably also included examples from literature and radio. The first computer I will be look at is NOVAC which stands for-Nuclear Operative Variable Automatic Computer which played a major part in the 1954 science fiction film Gog.
This article is an expansion of a piece written for a previous blog.
The NOVAC computer is located in a top secret US research facility under the New Mexico desert, where a new space station is being constructed. It controls all of the equipment in the facility. There is a spate of mysterious deaths among the 150 scientists working on the project and agents from the Office of Scientific Investigation in Washington DC are called in to solve the problem. OSI Agent Dr David Shepphard quickly establishes that the scientists death are due to deliberate sabotage of the base computer NOVAC. He eventually establishes that when the NOVAC computer was being built a secret radio transmitter was incorporated into the design. This allows NOVAC to be controlled, unknown to the scientists, by a fibre glass robot plane which beams UHF radio signals to NOVAC, thereby controlling its every function. NOVAC in turn controls the facilities two robots, Gog and Magog. These two names are taken from the Bible, the first mention of which occurs in the Book of Ezekiel, where Gog is an individual and Magog is his land. In Genesis 10 Magog is a person son of Japheth son of Noah, but there is no mention of Gog. In the Book of Revelation, Gog and Magog together are the hostile nations of the world. These two robots are the agents bringing about the deaths of the scientists. The NOVAC machine is a massive piece of 1950's computer hardware as can be seen from the picture attached to this post.
An interesting point to note from the picture is that it clearly shows a Bendix computer logo on the bottom right of the screen. Gog was released in 1954 and Bendix did not release their first computers until 1956. Was their a product leak from Bendix or did the films directors have the ability to predict the future? Gog is the third and final film in Ivan Tors Office of Scientific Investigation trilogy, following The Magnetic Monster(1953) and Riders to the Stars(1954).
Gog is a classic piece of 1950's style science fiction as is well worth a watch. It is currently readily available online from various streaming media sites, all of which I trust are legal.
