CSIRAC, designed and built by CSIR scientists, was the first stored-memory electronic computer in Australia.

In 1947 Maston Beard and Trevor Pearcey (a British radar scientist who had emigrated to Australia after World War II) led a research group at the CSIR (after 1949 called CSIRO) Radiophysics Laboratory which designed and built CSIR Mk1, the world's fourth stored-memory electronic computer. The first program was run in 1949 and the machine was in full operation by 1951. It embodied many features novel at the time and was able to operate more than 1000 times faster than the best mechanical calculators.

In 1955 the computer was transferred to the University of Melbourne where renamed CSIRAC it continued in operation until November 1964.

The Computation Department (formerly the Computation Laboratory) which operated and maintained CSIRAC provided a computing service to the University in addition to the academic functions of research and teaching. In 1969 these functions were separated. The computing service was transferred to the newly created Computer Centre and the academic functions were continued in the Department of Information Science within the Science Faculty. Following the appointment of the foundation professor in 1975 the department was renamed the Department of Computer Science. The department transferred to the Faculty of Engineering in 1989 and became the Department of Computer Science and Software Engineering in 2000.

The archival material retained when CSIRAC was decommissioned by the Computation Department in 1964 was preserved within the academic Department. The Department of Computer Science was instrumental in 1996 in establishing the project which has resulted in the collection and cataloguing of documents, artefacts and images relating to the CSIR Mk1 (CSIRAC).

Australia's isolation in the Second World War and its need to develop radar systems and microwave vacuum tube technology led in 1939 to the establishment of the CSIR Division of Radiophysics located, along with other divisions, in the grounds of Sydney University. The Division of Radiophysics, with considerable experience in radar pulse techniques, was well placed to direct some of its resources towards the development of electronic computing. In early 1947, Edward Bowen, Chief of the Division (with prompting from Trevor Pearcey) decided that Radiophysics should enter the field of high-speed electronic computing. Trevor Pearcey teamed up with Maston Beard and proceeded with the design and construction of the minimum necessary components for an electronic computing system. A third member of the team, Reginald Ryan, who joined the project in 1948, was set the task of building a mercury delay storage system. Pearcey, in collaboration with Geoffrey Hill, then worked on developing a more detailed logic design to facilitate the engineering and fix the instruction set and to devise a practical programming scheme. About November 1949 (exact date not recorded) the basic units were assembled and the first test-program was run. The result was the first automatic electronic computer in Australia and one of the earliest in the world. This was the CSIR Mk1, later renamed CSIRAC.

First test programs were run in late 1949, and CSIR Mk1 was developed to a stage where it was in restricted operation in late 1950 and was demonstrated during the first Conference on Automatic Computing Machines held on 7-9 August, 1951. One of the demonstrations included a performance of computer generated music . From 1951 to mid-1955 CSIR Mk1 was employed in the Division of Radiophysics, in part to support the cloud-physics and radioastronomy projects, as well as a tool for developing programming techniques. It also provided a computing service for other divisions of CSIRO, universities, and a variety of other research, design and engineering organisations. In 1955 the computer was dismantled and transported by road to the University of Melbourne where it was reassembled and on 14 June 1956 formally recommissioned and named CSIRAC.

The CSIR Mk1 computer was moved to Melbourne in 1955 and reassembled in the Computation Laboratory which was located in the Physics School at the University of Melbourne. On 14 June 1956, the Chairman of CSIRO Sir Ian Clunies-Ross officially opened the new Computation Laboratory and the rebuilt Mk1 was formally recommissioned and named CSIRAC. This occasion marked the beginning of computing in Victoria and the establishment of the first university computing facility in Australia. At this time CSIRAC was not only the first automatic electronic computer in Victoria but still the only one operating anywhere in Australia. The computer service at the University of Melbourne was managed by Dr Frank Hirst and Bill Flower and the regular operating and maintenance team included Frank Hirst, Ron Bowles, Jurij Semkiw, Peter Thorne and Kay Sullivan (Thorne).
In 1962 the Computation Laboratory was renamed the Computation Department and Frank Hirst designated as Reader in Charge. The Department continued to house and operate CSIRAC until it was decommissioned in November 1964 and despatched to the Applied Science Museum. A collection of documents and artefacts associated with CSIRAC (including the program library) was retained in the Department and its successor organisations.This provided the basis for the archival material accumulated in the CSIRAC History Project from 1996 onwards.

A division of CSIRO. Many of the early users of CSIRAC came from this division,
Roy Muncey, Terry Holden, Don Beresford, John Russell, John Spencer. A noteworthy project was for the rigid frame analysis of large buildings used in the design of a number of prominent buildings of the day including: Consolidated Zinc Building (Melbourne), Colonial Mutual Life Building (Melbourne), Reserve Bank Building (Sydney), T & G Building (Perth), and Hotel Chevron (Surfers Paradise). Other projects were the calculation of internal temperatures in buildings and the production of tables of solar position and radiation for Australian capital cities.

John Spencer graduated BSc with a major in chemistry from the University of Melbourne in 1949. He commenced work at the CSIRO Division of Building Research, working initially on joint-sealing compounds, bitumens and bituminous roofing and later on thermal, optical and mechanical properties of various types of glazing. His association with CSIRAC started in 1959 and continued until its decommissioning in 1964. Its use facilitated work on the calculation of solar position and the measurement and estimation of solar radiation on building surfaces leading to the publication of tables for all Australian capital cities. Later, using various CSIRO computers after CSIRAC, he worked on the calculation of indoor temperatures, air conditioning loads and energy consumption in buildings and building thermal modelling. John was one of the few who preserved CSIRAC tapes and has been able to donate them to the archive. He retired from CSIRO in 1994 and has since written an emulator for CSIRAC to run on a PC.

Trevor Pearcey graduated in physics from Imperial College, London in 1940. He joined a radar research group in the UK and worked on the theory of microwave optics for the design of antennas, shaped disks, waveguide structures, scattering of targets and other similar projects. Many of these studies required large scale calculations and in early 1945 he discussed the possibility of using electronics for fast computation with Douglas Hartree. In late 1945 he joined CSIR Radiophysics in Sydney and in 1947 he collaborated with Maston Beard in the design, construction and operation of the CSIR Mk1 computer (later renamed CSIRAC). Following the termination of the Mk1 project he returned to the UK but in 1959 came back to Australia and worked on the CIRRUS computer and the development of CSIRONET. In 1972, after a period as a consultant with Control Data Corporation, he joined Caulfield Institute of Technology as Head of the Electronic Data Processing Department and retired as Dean of Technology in 1985.

Dr Hirst was Senior Lecturer then Officer in Charge of the Computation Laboratory, The University of Melbourne from 1955-1969. He supervised the operation of CSIRAC until its decommissioning in 1964 and later continued on as Reader in Charge of the Department of Information Science until 1972.

Pgt to fix

Donated to the collection