website/content/museum/csirac.md

title, categories, types, origins, years, params

title	categories	types	origins	years	params
CSIRAC	Computers	Professional Computer	Australia	1949	name image company company_name specs tabs forum_thread emulators oc_id source CSIRAC /media/museum/photos/csirac_system_s1.jpg /companies/csirac CSIRAC label value NAME CSIRAC label value MANUFACTURER CSIRAC label value TYPE Professional Computer label value ORIGIN Australia label value YEAR 1949 label value BUILT IN LANGUAGE Machine code label value KEYBOARD Switch panel label value CPU No CPU, 2000 vacuum-tubes label value SPEED About 500 instructions per second, later raised to 1000 i/s label value RAM 768 x 20-bit words stored in mercury delay lines label value TEXT MODES 16 columns x 20 lines display label value SOUND Built-in speaker able to play primitive music label value SIZE / WEIGHT several tons label value BUILT IN MEDIA 1024-word drum disk, Teletype emulators 1055 title url platform text CSIRAC Emulator http://www.csse.unimelb.edu.au/dept/about/csirac/emulator.html Windows 1085 url date https://web.archive.org/web/20230605042525/http://www.old-computers.com/museum/computer.asp?c=1085 2023-06-05

In 1947, Maston Beard and Trevor Pearcey led a research group at the Sydney-based Radiophysics Laboratory of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research [known as CSIRO* today], to design and build the first Australian electronic computer.

The resources they had available included the vacuum tube or "valve" technology and the pulse techniques developed for radar systems during World War II. Their developments paralleled, but were to a considerable extent independent of computer developments in Europe and the USA.

The CSIR Mk1 ran its first test programs in late 1949 and it was the fifth electronic stored program computer ever developed. It embodied many features novel at the time and was able to operate more than 1000 times faster than the best mechanical calculators. The machine was officially opened in 1951 and used to solve problems both for the Radiophysics Laboratory and outside organisations. It was decommissioned in 1955 and shipped to Melbourne.

On 14 June 1956 the Mk1 was recommissioned and renamed CSIRAC and the new Computation Laboratory at the University of Melbourne was officially opened. It was in Melbourne that CSIRAC came into its own as a general computing workhorse - from June 1956 to June 1964 over 700 computing projects were processed.

In November 1964, Dr. Frank Hirst switched CSIRAC off for the last time and donated it to the Museum of Victoria. It is now at the Melbourne Museum, and was modified to blink its lights on and off for the exhibition, although it isn't actually turned on.

Information taken from the detailed page of the University of Melbourne dedicated to the CSIRAC computer.

We need more info about this computer ! If you designed, used, or have more info about this system, please send us pictures or anything you might find useful.