There's a terrific series of videos covering Australia's history in computing I noted in this post. After watching the episode on CSIRAC, I demanded that Ralph, VK3ZZC, join me in a visit to Spotswood to see it. (Click to enlarge).
The display is not well lit I'm afraid but Ralph was able to point out the features of it to me.
"Physicist and mathematician Trevor Pearcey and electrical/mechanical engineer Maston Beard led the design team for this computer, the first in Australia, and it was built by the CSIRO Division of Radiophysics. CSIRAC demonstrates how Australian designers, working largely in isolation, could successfully build one of the world's first computers. SIRAC ran its first program in 1949 and operated until 1964, performing computations for scientific, engineering and commercial projects.
It is now the only intact first generation computer."
The pumping station is also a wonderful thing to see.
Some images deserve to be black & white.
Also there is restoration work being done on the Melbourne Telescope in a wonderful workshop that I plan to use as a videoconference background in future.
ScienceWorks is a good thing to visit although it seems targeted at toddlers. I thought it would be difficult to get to but it's walking distance from Spotswood station which is very well connected.
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