Collecting computers —and computer users Richard Gillespie A door seems an odd object to the control panel. After a tantalising Among the world’s first include in a computing collection. pause, the computer began printing a computers Yet the wooden-framed glass door programmed message: The door that is now preserved in now proudly displayed in the School the collection thus symbolises the of Computing and Information Mr Vice Chancellor. university’s entry into computing, Systems (pictured below) represents Thank you for declaring me open. both for research and teaching. Earlier the beginning of more than six I can add, subtract and multiply; that year, physics researchers had been decades of computing at the solve linear and differential observed emerging from the lab after University of Melbourne. equations; play a mediocre game seeing the computer being put through On 14 June 1956, a group of of chess and also some music.1 its first trials in Melbourne, excited dignitaries and nervous staff passed by the prospect of using CSIRAC to through the door of the Computation Because CSIRAC printed at the speed up their calculations. The first Laboratory, located in what is now rate of only four or five characters course in programming CSIRAC called the Old Physics Building on per second, the assembled guests had been run in February 1956, the Parkville campus. Sir Ian Clunies- had to wait about a minute for the attracting some 30 participants from Ross, chairman of CSIRO, formally message to be completed. But they university departments, research transferred the CSIR Mark 1 had no doubt that the event marked a organisations, government and computer to the university; vice- significant moment in the university’s business. Determining the foundation chancellor George Paton then history. The newspapers reported date of a computer science department named the re-assembled computer enthusiastically about the university’s is a contentious and competitive ‘CSIRAC’ and pressed a button on ‘electronic brain’.2 endeavour, but when the Computation Laboratory at the University of Melbourne was formally established as a separate department in October 1955, it was one of only a handful in the world. CSIRAC was by then a computer with an impressive history. It had been designed and built in Sydney by British physicist Trevor Pearcey and electrical engineer Maston Beard, as a research project of the Division of Radiophysics of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. The CSIR Mark 1, as the computer was called in Sydney, ran its first test 12 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 22, June 2018 Opposite: Door of the University of Melbourne Below: Jurij Semkiw at the control console Computation Laboratory, 1955. CSIRAC054, of CSIRAC at the University of Melbourne, School of Computing and Information Systems late 1950s. 2017.0071.00157, University of Collection, University of Melbourne. Melbourne Photograph Collection 1857–1990, University of Melbourne Archives. program around November 1949, making it the fourth electronic digital computer in the world. The Mark 1 was used extensively for computations in radio-astronomy and cloud physics, the two main research areas of the Division of Radiophysics, as well as by other researchers and organisations, such as the Snowy Mountains Authority. In 1951 it was even used to play some simple tunes—now recognised as being the world’s first computer music.3 By 1954, however, CSIR radiophysics chief Edward Bowen had decided to terminate the computer project, in part to focus his division’s limited funds on radio- astronomy and cloud physics, but also to pressure the government tables. Betty Laby in the Statistics computer. Extolling the powers of and universities into picking Department managed a team of the machine, Martin stressed to the up responsibility for electronic women ‘computers’, who undertook University of Melbourne Council that computing. By then Harry Messel, this work for the (overwhelmingly the hydrogen bomb could not have newly appointed physics professor at male) researchers. Cherry had been been developed without computers, the University of Sydney, was raising sending computations to Sydney to be for it would have been impossible for funds for a more powerful computer, run on the Mark 1 and recognised the humans to undertake the complex to undertake research in nuclear benefits of building a computational calculations: ‘It is simply a device physics. CSIR offered the Mark 1 to capacity in Melbourne, but he also which is absolutely essential today in interested parties. foresaw that digital computing was mathematics, theoretical physics and Thomas Cherry, the University about to transform many fields of statistics’.4 of Melbourne’s professor of research. Cherry forged an alliance It was never going to be mathematics, jumped at the with his Melbourne colleague Leslie straightforward to gain approval opportunity. Up to now, complex Martin, professor of physics, who for such a project in a university mathematical and statistical also saw the benefits of a machine that was operating a deficit budget calculations in the university required that could perform calculations and struggling to invest in research mechanical calculators or logarithm 1,000 times faster than a human equipment. Cherry and Martin Richard Gillespie Collecting computers—and computer users 13 An early printed circuit board, made by Jurij Semkiw to extend CSIRAC’s disk store, 1961. CSIRAC036, School of Computing and Information Systems Collection, University of Melbourne. argued that the Mark 1 was worth the operating memory, and construct Preserving CSIRAC £50,000 to £100,000 and available a new magnetic-disk store. After Fortunately, the operating team on permanent loan at no cost. 12 months of testing and technical understood CSIRAC’s historical Additional staff and operational upgrades, the renamed CSIRAC significance. Whereas the other expenses would cost £6,500 a year, (Commonwealth Scientific and first-generation computers in Britain but CSIRO had promised half that Industrial Research Organisation and the United States were scrapped, amount for three years, provided it Automatic Computer) was ready or only parts retained, in 1964 the could continue to use the machine to meet the needs of university complete units of CSIRAC were for its own projects. Martin researchers and external users. donated to the Institute of Applied anticipated, rather optimistically, Over the next eight years, from Science (now part of Museums that the computer could earn £2,000 June 1956 to November 1964, Victoria). As a result, CSIRAC is the from external users, so that the real CSIRAC operated for some 30,000 only intact first-generation computer charge to university funds would hours, with maintenance accounting surviving anywhere in the world.6 The only be £1,000 a year. (University for only 10 per cent of that time. This computer remained in storage until researchers and administrators will was an extraordinary performance CSIRAC’s original designer, Trevor appreciate this financial sleight- for a first-generation computer, and Pearcey, became dean of the School of of-hand.) Council approved the testimony to the skills and dedication Computing and Information Systems funding and the Mark 1 was of the operating team, which over at Caulfield Institute of Technology; carefully dismantled, loaded onto that period included Frank Hirst, in 1980 he arranged for the display a truck, covered with a tarpaulin, maintenance engineer Ron Bowles, of CSIRAC at Caulfield, where it and transported down the Hume Jurij Semkiw, Peter Thorne and Kay remained until 1992, when it returned Highway in June 1955. Thorne. CSIRAC was available for to storage. Once again, a former Physics lecturer Dr Frank Hirst use by university staff and students, CSIRAC operator came to the had been put in charge of the new CSIRO researchers, and government rescue. Peter Thorne, by then head of Computation Department, which departments; in addition, income the Department of Computer Science was overseen by Thomas Cherry and was generated from business users, at the University of Melbourne, Leslie Martin. Hirst later recalled: although rather more modestly than arranged in 1996 for CSIRAC to be ‘We had only one committee Martin had promised! Some 700 displayed in the School of Computer meeting of five minutes duration projects were undertaken, including Science in Bouverie Street, to mark when, by chance, the two Professors physics computations, processing of the 40th anniversary of CSIRAC’s were visiting the Computation survey data, solar radiation tables, operation in Melbourne. Department at the same time’.5 loan repayment tables, life insurance This event triggered a more Hirst had to oversee the re-assembly tables, structural engineering for systematic documentation of of the large cabinets (containing buildings (including ICI House), CSIRAC’s history, and of computer more than 2,000 vacuum tubes), forestry research, electricity supply science at the university. A CSIRAC redesign the mercury delay lines for and climate research. History Team documented CSIRAC, 14 University of Melbourne Collections, issue 22, June 2018 Right: Country school students visiting CSIRAC on Open Day, 1963 (Victorian Pressphoto). 2017.0071.00480, University of Melbourne Photograph Collection 1857–1990, University of Melbourne Archives. Below: CSIRAC on display in Melbourne Museum, 2001. The panels have been removed to show the valves and circuitry. Photograph courtesy Museums Victoria.