Computer History: IBM SABRE Reservation System, American Airlines (1960 scheduling air fare flights)

American Airlines: IBM Computer History: Origin of the IBM SABRE Airline Reservation System, developed from 1957 to 1959, installed in 1960. The world’s first large scale electronic reservation system. Built utilizing IBM 7090 mainframe and technologies used in the Air Force’s missile defense program, it revolutionized the airline industry of the 1960’s. With vintage films from the 1950’s and a rare IBM film of the SABRE Experimental Agent’s workstation of 1958, we can see how the system evolved over time. We also discuss the pre-SABRE “Reservisor” system developed by Teleregister Corporation. A 4 minute historical into, followed by the 8 minute IBM Experimental workstation, and short image glossary. Total run time about 13 mins.

{Presented for Educational and Historical use only. IBM film clip is copyrighted by International Business Machines Corporation and used here with permission. Computer History Archives Project ("CHAP")

IBM originally named the project SABER for “Semi-Automatic Business Environment Response”.
In 1959, American Airlines changed it to SABRE for “Semi-Automatic Business Research Environment”, for marketing purposes.

With Special Thanks to:

IBM Corporate Archives
Poughkeepsie, NY 12601
Max Campbell, Archivist

Computer History Museum
Mountain View, California
Dag Spicer, Senior Curator

Charles Babbage Institute
(Oral history interview of R. Blair Smith)

San Diego Air and Space Museum Archives

Vintage Airport film footage
The Prelinger Archives

Modern Narration: David Melvin

Reference Links:

SABRE: 10 page report describing the System (Computer History Museum)

Teleregister Corporation brochure (Computer History Museum)

(IBM 7090 Specs) A Third Survey of Domestic Electronic Digital Computing Systems
Report No. 1115, March 1961, by Martin H. Weik, by Ballistic Research Lab.(BRL),
Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland

Datamation magazine, March 1969
Issue Topic: “The busy crowded world of air transportation”

The Sabre Story (Sabre Corporation)

Sabre Holdings Corporation (history, profile)

Book: “Airline Operations and Management “
by Gerald N. Cook and Bruce G. Billig, 2017, Routledge, New York, NY

DC 7 History --

[peterwaesch]

I started working for American Airlines in Chicago, May 1961, with the understanding that my job was temporary because SABRE was being implemented and the manpower would go down after that implementation, I was taught how to use the Reservisor.
36 years later, retired as an American Airlines Manager under the SABRE umbrella, shortly before EDS showed up.

[markusjuenemann]

If only today's customers were so patient and friendly like those back then...

[j.sebring]

A direct offshoot of the SAGE system. I spent five years working on that system. It was right at the edge of the vacuum tube/transistor age.

[Roady]

Wow that’s insane 8:20 on two days of training. I use Sabre interact for a us airline and we had a month of training. Granted I am pretty young and never used anything close to any old systems. Making new bookings now takes around 20 over the phones. What a crazy world.

[rmrbush]

I had to write code against Sabre years back, they had a SOAP based wrapper that we used to communicate with it. I believed I was dealing with a stateless service, but it was indeed stateful. That bug lurked without being a problem for over a year until we hit high volume. Let me tell you, that was not a fun day/night. I had to first shutdown the whole integration and then figure out what we fucked up. When I realized the nature of the bug, boy did I feel small. I had to quickly build a system to store the state which needed to be passed a long with each step of the booking. Was able to turn it back on about 12 hours later. Then of course we had to deal with all the fucked up bookings, which honestly, wasn't as many as you would think.

[patricknelson]

What's insane is I remember helping to build a website for AA back in like 2014 and we had to interface with an old system called "SABRE"... holy crap, they weren't kidding when they called it old, haha. It *really* hit me though when I visited the Computer History museum in Mountain View. Strolling by this old mainframe computer, I saw the word SABRE and I was like "Oh! That reminds me of a website I did a few years back." I kept reading and they mentioned American Airlines and I was gobsmacked, lol. I know that's just a general name and it's probably been through quite a few iterations over the years, but I didn't realize just how far back that name really went!

[thesledgehammerblog]

My Mom used to work as a travel agent in the 90s and early 2000s, and used SABRE for making reservations, and later Worldspan (a similar competing system). Don't remember much about it, but the commands and output on the screens was so convoluted I had no idea how anyone could read it (guess it made sense if you were trained on it.)

[frankowalker]

All that from a chance meeting on a plane. :)

[tpcdude]

Cool! never saw a IBM B1 with a separated keyboard and printer. crude but effective.

[pantherplatform]

This is rapidly becoming the channel I watch the most.

[AlonsoRules]

"Idlewild" - you know its a real throwback when this name is used

[faizansiddiqui]

Wow, and I am still using Sabre today—much more modern now. I branched off to Amadeus after a few years, but my heart is still with Sabre; it's the first GDS I learned

[James_Knott]

Back in the late '70s & early '80s, I was a computer technician with CN Telecommunications, working on the Air Canada reservation system. However, Air Canada then shut down their own system and moved to SABRE, which I had no involvement with. The Air Canada system I worked on was more advanced than what I saw in these older SABRE systems, but I expect that changed by the time they switched. The Air Canada system evolved from an earlier CN Rail passenger system that some of my co-workers supported, but I didn't. The Air Canada system ran on UNIVAC computers, which I didn't work on. I worked on the communications front end for the UNIVAC, based on Collins computers. The Collins computers were MIL spec IBM clones.

[hattree]

What's most amazing is an airline having enough money to do this and not having seen them go bankrupt 3 or 4 times in your life.

[CATDIGITAL]

I have been using SABRE from AA for about 40 years! - The Americans were technologically at least 30 years ahead of Europe. EXTRAORDINARY film!

[tracycolvin]

I learned Sabre to become a ticket agent for AA in 1987.. It took 3 full lines to type in just to change out a ticket..After becoming a flight attendant, and leaving AA in 1993, they were still using Sabre.

[AlexPayneKU]

Большое спасибо! Очень интересно! Успехов!

[ebntje]

My father helped install Sabre in Tulsa mid 1960"s. He worked out of Briarcliff Manor NY

[johnsimon]

1:38 holy moley what a monster! I’ve never seen a magnetic drum running before. Only in museums.
3:48 Miami? Seattle? Eh…. leave them off
9:52 Collecting OFFICE phone first! Then home phone. I know it’s a demo call, but that’s a cultural difference. Actual cost of a flight is never discussed. Also this predates credit cards, so no billing.

[MJK]

🎶We've come a long ways, baby!!!🎶