Computer History on the Move A Historical Tour of Compu8ng in Melbourne Graham Farr Faculty of Informa8on Technology Monash University Graham.Farr@infotech.monash.edu.au! Joint work with Barbara Ainsworth, Chris Avram, Judy Sheard
Computer history growing interest, and recogni8on of importance Museums: Computer History Museum, Mountain View, Ca. Deutches Museum, Munich Bletchley Park Australian Computer Museum Society Monash Museum of Compu8ng History virtual museums
Inspira8on Jill Vincent (then MCEGGS, now U of Melbourne): Mathema8cs tour along St Kilda Road and Swanston Street aimed at secondary students emphasis on geometry Why not have a compu8ng tour of Melbourne? emphasis on history
Compu8ng in Melbourne: A Historical Tour Sites: a subset of Monash Museum of Compu8ng History Silicon Mile (St Kilda Road) Old Melbourne Observatory Victoria Barracks St Paul s Cathedral State Library of Victoria ICI House (now Orica House) Melbourne Museum: CSIRAC Physics Museum, University of Melbourne Old Physics, University of Melbourne: former CSIRAC loca8on
Compu8ng in Melbourne: A Historical Tour Takes about eight hours, including lunch and café stops First tour: Sat 16 August 2008 Seven organised tours so far, more planned for 2010 Can be done in self- guided mode Walking, tram travel Free (apart from tram 8cket, cafés) Par8cipants: mix of Monash staff, p/g and u/g students, alumni members of the public, especially since The Age ar8cle (14 May 2009) including computer industry veterans - > good info for our research age, gender, culture
The tour shows changes to technology business methods business community applica8ons society Links to undergraduate curriculum: how CSIRAC works - - - illustrates basic computer architecture Architecture!
Benefits building academic community broadens educa8on of students aerac8ve to interna8onal students good publicity useful research contacts with computer industry veterans more value in Monash connec8on for some alumni
Other computer history tours? From the web: How to Tour Silicon Valley http://www.ehow.com/how_5043850_tour-silicon-valley.html! Silicon Valley & San Jose Sightseeing Tours http://www.toursanfranciscobay.com/tours/silicon-valley-sanjose.html A Nerd's Tour of Silicon Valley http://www.diddit.com/list-lwrpdp/a-nerds-tour-of-siliconvalley/! etc and many tours of museums
Conjecture: our computer history tour is the first one outside Silicon Valley; for organised groups that s free; using walking and public transport only
Monash Museum of Compu8ng History, Caulfield campus: calculators
Monash Museum of Compu8ng History: A Digital Evolu8on
Monash Museum of Computing History: Monash s first computer: Ferranti Sirius, 1962, an early commercial transistor computer
Ferran8 Sirius
First Computer History Tour group, 16 August 2008
Stanhill 34 Queens Road, Melbourne (near Albert Park); Ferran8 office, 1960s. Monash s first computer bought here
Stanhill
Stanhill
Stanhill
Old Melbourne Observatory Williamstown, 1853; moved to present site, 1863 oldest con8nuously opera8ng observatory in Australia site of Melbourne s first computer room
Old Melbourne Observatory
Melbourne s first Computer Room, 1863
Melbourne s first Computer Room, 1863
Victoria Barracks: site of Australia s first supercomputer
St Paul s Cathedral
St Paul s - > Macartney Chapel - > List of Deans of Melbourne: Stuart Barton Babbage, great- great- grandson of Charles Babbage
Na8onal Mutual: first commercial use of Smalltalk- 80 in Australia, 1987; and of OOP? 1985
Melbourne Museum
CSIR Mark I (Sydney, 1949) CSIRAC (U of Melbourne, 1956) CSIRO Automa8c Computer
CSIRAC Australia s first computer Fourth programmable, general purpose, stored- program computer in the world Oldest surviving intact computer in the world
Looking behind CSIRAC
CSIRAC s desktop
CSIRAC
Looking behind CSIRAC (from other side): Main memory: mercury delay lines (centre foreground) Registers, also mercury delay line (top centre)
Barbara Ainsworth, Judy Sheard, Chris Avram
Further informa8on: http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~gfarr/tour/! Thanks to: Jim Breen, for informa8on on Albert Park Barracks and the Lonsdale Exchange; Ron Bird and Max Burnet, for informa8on about computer companies in St Kilda Rd; Rev Dr Mark Burton, Canon Barry Smith and the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne for assistance with visits to St Paul's Cathedral; Don Schauder, for informa8on on Vicnet and Pictoria at the State Library of Victoria; Gary Hardy, Graeme Johanson and Derek Whitehead, for informa8on on Vicnet; Anne Beaumont and Olga Tsara, of the SLV, for informa8on on Pictoria; David Demant and Melbourne Museum, for assistance with visits to CSIRAC; Nick Nicola and the School of Physics, University of Melbourne, for assistance with visits to the Physics Museum; John Sheehan, for recollec8ons of the protests at Honeywell; Peter Thorne, for informa8on on CSIRAC. Some references: A B Ainsworth, Monash University's First Computer: The Ferran8 Sirius computer at Monash University, 30pp, August 2008. hep://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/about/projects/museum/papers/first- computer- at- monash- university- v4.pdf A B Ainsworth, J Sheard and C Avram, The Monash Museum of Compu8ng History: Part 1, ACM SIGCSE Bulle0n inroads 40 (2) (June 2008) 31-34. A B Ainsworth, J Sheard and C Avram, The Monash Museum of Compu8ng History: Part 2, ACM SIGCSE Bulle0n inroads, 40 (4) (December 2008) 31-34. R W Home, The Physical Tourist: Physics in Melbourne, Physics in Perspec0ve 7 (2005) 473-490. D McCann and P Thorne, The Last of the First: CSIRAC: Australia's First Computer, Department of Computer Science and Sorware Engineering, University of Melbourne, 2000. S Rood, From Ferran0 to Faculty: Informa0on Technology at Monash University, 1960-1990, Monash University epress, 2008. J Vincent, Shrine to University: A Geometry journey along St. Kilda Road and Swanston Street, Mathema8cal Associa8on of Victoria, Brunswick, Victoria, Australia, 1999. A later edi8on is at hep://www.mav.vic.edu.au/studact/im/im_06.pdf.