Cultural Object

CSIRAC (1949 - )

From
1949
Australia
Functions
Computer Technology or Multimedia
Website
http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/csirac/

Summary

In the late 1940s Australian scientists embarked on an ambitious project to design and build, from the ground up, a programmable digital computer. They succeeded. The computer they created was not only the first computer in Australia, it was one of the very first in the world. This was the CSIR Mk 1 computer (later renamed CSIRAC). It provided a computing service through the 1950s and well into the 1960s. Furthermore, it survives intact and is now considered to be the oldest survivor of the machines which started the digital revolution.

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Related People

Archival resources

Museum Victoria

  • Records of CSIRAC, 1940 - 2002; Museum Victoria. Details

Published resources

Books

  • Doornbusch, Paul, The Music of CSIRAC: Australia's first computer music (Melbourne: Common Ground Publishing, 2005), 101 pp. Details
  • Doornbusch, Paul, The Music of CSIRAC: Australia's first computer music (Australia: Common Ground Publishing, 2005), CD plus 101 pp. Details
  • McCann, Doug and Thorne, Peter, The Last of the First CSIRAC: Australia's First Computer (Melbourne: Melbourne University Press, 2000), 196 pp. Details

Edited Books

  • Bennett, J. M.; Broomham, Rosemary; Murton, P. M.; Pearcey, T.; Rutledge, R. W. ed., Computing in Australia: the Development of a Profession (Sydney: Hale and Iremonger, 1994), 344 pp. Pages 18, 23, 33-35, 43, 46, 49-51, 66, 83, 122, 187, 213. Details

Journal Articles

  • Beard, M.; Pearcey, T., 'The Genesis of an Early Stored-Program Computer: CSIRAC', Annals of the History of Computing, 6 (2) (1984), 106-115. Details
  • Bourke, William, 'Pioneering of numerical weather prediction in Australia: Dick Jenssen, Uwe Radok and CSIRAC', Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, 133 (1) (2021), 67-81. https://doi.org/10.1071/RS21010. Details
  • Gillespie, Richard, 'Collecting computers - and computer users', University of Melbourne Collections, 22 (2018), 12-22. Details

Newspaper Articles

Resources

Resource Sections

See also

Ailie Smith

Created: 1 November 2001, Last modified: 13 January 2025

EOAS ID: biogs/A001636b.htm

This Edition: 2026 February - 1926 Centenaries
Kooyang - Gariwerd calendar - Late summer: late January to late March - season of eels
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Publisher: Swinburne University of Technology.

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