A significant and stimulating feature of the early days was the close cooperation with other departments in sharing resources and facilities.

For example in November 1968 we started running work for the Repatriation Department, which was building up a system ahead of acquisition of their own equipment. In exchange they financed additional disc capacity for the Bureau's installation.

This mutually beneficial interaction virtually ceased with the transfer to Canberra of several Commonwealth Department Head Offices.

Early applications

By today's standards for meteorological processing, this first installation would be considered primitive. For example, satellite orbit prediction required the precise determination of the path of the weather satellite so that the Bureau's satellite tracking devices could be set to follow the orbit, the devices were controlled by paper tape generated by the computer. Similar paper tapes were also sent by ship with each year's Antarctic expedition. Also infrared data from US satellites was available on airmailed magnetic tape on request.

Yet most of the major applications were pioneered on it, at a time when much of the software had to be developed in-house. Who now has to spend any thought in constructing or even choosing a short program?

For the statistical analysis of rainfall and water resources data, IBM and Bureau hydrologists worked together on the development of a package named PLAN (what those letters meant has been long forgotten).

These early applications included the 'real-time' system, climatological data processing, research and development projects, Management Branch applications (staff records—a supply system had to wait for a few more years), Facilities Branch projects (satellites, instrumentation, traffic statistics, communications) and some Regional Office projects.

From then on the problem of coping with rapidly increasing volume and range of tasks was always present.

Unsophisticated days

Those were unsophisticated days; IBM had only recently stopped the practice of serving hot sausage rolls for morning tea at promotion sessions; another computer firm could advertise for programming staff thus: 'EDP—if you know what these letters mean you could be the person we are looking for'.

The ABC in announcing the signing of a contract for the 'Bureau's first system did not name the successful tenderer (it turned out later the announcer thought he would be violating a 'no advertising' policy). This announcement caused considerable consternation among still-hopeful tenderers.

In those days, 'strategic planning'; was not yet a 'buzz word', and momentous decisions were taken in an informal way. A toss of the coin decided which of the two Senior Programmers (as they were then known) would be the first Head of the Operations Branch (later SPOB) and which the first Applications Branch Head (later CAP).

There was the excitement of being a pioneer. The Bureau's was the first installation of this model in Australia, and the greatest concentration of computing power under one roof. Consequently we were able to attract many outstanding programmers and operators, But there were also disadvantages of being the first. An initial attitude of conservatism was adopted, forced by operational commitments—no equipment or software was acceptable for Operational use if it had not already been proved in overseas installations.

Bureau of Meteorology