75th anniversary of Australia’s first computer

14 November, CSIRO Black Mountain

We celebrated the 75th anniversary of Australia’s first stored-program computer, CSIR Mk1 (later CSIRAC), which ran its first program in November 1949 and the commencement of the computing service and network in 1964 (which became Csironet).

There was a tour of the former Csironet building, followed by presentations in the Discovery Theatre.  Some of our visitors enjoyed a Pioneers lunch and a tour of Peter Hewseton’s computing artefacts.

Watch a recording of the presentations

CSIROpedia has a section on CSIRO Computer History with detailed links and references. We thank  Robert Bell who has compiled the history of the first computer in Chapter 1.