Sage (THe computer)

I don't know when SAGE actually shut down, but it was certainly operating through the 1960's. Seem to recall that if the cooling went down, everybody had to vacate the room "right now" before it was flooded with halon or something not so breathable as air...

Bill

He was a cheap, chrome plated CBer microphone?

No, that would be if a fire broke out, the halon is to extinguish the fire. If the cooling failed, i think they'd have time to power it off before anything caught fire, but it would be a big deal to shut down the "big board". Supposedly, SAGE systems were run well into the

Jon

And, the real issue with Halon isn't that it's directly hazardous to breath. In the concentrations used for fire suppression, it isn't... it can create a sensation not unlike mild alcohol intoxication, but it isn't present in concentrations high enough to exclude oxygen and cause hypoxia.

As I understand it, the real danger is that a lot of the materials in any fire release toxic gasses when burned... and when halon interrupts this combustion process, the toxicity of the half-burned material can be even worse than if were allowed to burn to completion. Half-burned plastics, etc. can be *very* bad to breathe, there will probably be a bunch of carbon monoxide floating around as well... and so when the halon is discharged and the fire goes out, the air remaining in the room is likely to be rather poisonous to humans until it's flushed out and exchanged.

Halar and FEP compounds were very popular at out facility for making flame retardant wire and release gas to smother out other flame sources near by.

Although made to pass smokeless laws that were put in place to protect the occupants with in a fire, these products were not odorless and thus still was a hazard for many. For example, if you were a tobacco user, the last thing you wanted to do is be sucking down FEP fumes or smoking around hot molted FEP. Even then, if you had lungs full of nicotine, you were screwed!

Jamie

flooded

=20 As i understand it Halon interferes with oxygen exchange in the lungs as well, in a progressive way.

?-)

For the halomethanes usually used for fire extinguishing, this appears not to be the case. The reaction-blocking chemical reaction occurs when the halons are decomposed by high heat... it's the chlorine radicals released in the decomposition which interfere with the combustion process. This specific chemical effect does not occur at low temperatures.

"Halon 1301 causes only slight giddiness at its effective concentration of 5%, and even at 15% persons remain conscious but impaired and suffer no long term effects. (Experimental animals have also been exposed to 2% concentrations of Halon 1301 for 30 hours per week for 4 months, with no discernible health effects at all.)"

Of course, if you flood the air with *any* gas, to an extent where it dilutes the concentration of oxygen enough, people will begin to suffer from hypoxia and can quite easily pass out. This will occur even with chemically-inert gasses such as nitrogen or argon.

There are a lot of chemicals which can be referred to as "halons"... carbon tetrachloride being one... not great stuff to breathe, and carbon tet hasn't been used for fire extinguishing in many years.