CSIRAC Australia's 1st computer

Happy 2^6-4 Birthday CSIRAC "... You could say that CSIRAC was the first iPod if you like... you would feed in your paper tape and CSIRAC played the music ,,, And today you have a little chip in which you record your music, you put your recorded music onto the iPod, and the iPod - which is basically a computer - plays your music." ..." Australia's first 'iPod' marks 60th birthday, ABC News, Amy Simmons, 25th November 2009. Australia's first computer While I was waiting for a photo op at the Squid dissection I ducked in to check out CSIRAC. CSIRAC (pronounced "cy-rack", Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation Automatic Computer) is located at Museum Victoria and is the first Australian computer and the worlds fourth. It is also the only intact example of the worlds first generation computers. It ran it's first programs in 1949 and continued until 1964. The team who designed CSIRAC, Trever Pearcey (Maths/Physics) and Maston Beard (Electrical/Mechanical engineer) built the machine at CSIRO division of Radio Physics to prove Australia could in fact build a computer by itself. This computer is designated an Australian National Engineering landmark. At the end of CSIRACs life was a taste of things to come from which the Free software movement was spawn ... "... CSIRAC was replaced by an IBM 7044. This was so expensive that its cabinets were kept locked. Even the university’s computer staff were not allowed to experiment with its hardware. This contrasted greatly with the ‘open-door’ access and hands-on approach to CSIRAC. ..." ~ Museum Victoria, Presevation.