CSIRAC Chronology

1945 - Trevor Pearcey sees Howard Aiken's Mk1 (or Automatic Sequence Controlled Calculator) at Harvard, and decides that paper tape-based systems are too slow, and that a fully electronic design would be superior.

1946 - Trevor Pearcey begins to formulate the logical planning for an "Automatic Computer".

1946 - Chief of Radiophysics Edward Bowen and Assistant Chief Joseph Pawsey decided on radioastronomy and rain-physics as the two main areas of research, with a third, radio propagation dropped in favour of the development of electronic computing.

1948 - Construction of the Mk1 computer begins with Maston Beard in charge of engineering and Trevor Pearcey covering the logical design.

1949 - First test program is run in late November - a long multiplication routine.

1951 - Brian Cooper constructs a drum-based secondary storage unit, and begins to construct a larger drum-based device with greater capacity.

1951 - The Mk1 is publicly demonstrated.

1951 - Music first played on the Mk1.

1953 - Reginald Ryan doubles the Mk1's mercury delay line storage capacity to 1024 words.

1955 - Maston Beard designs a disk-type secondary storage unit, abandoning Brian Cooper's second drum-type design.

1954 - Maston Beard with the assistance of Geoff Chandler completely redesigns the main memory circuits which were designated MKII.

1955 - The Mk1 is dismantled for shipment to Melbourne.

1956 - June 14. The Computation Laboratory is opened at the University of Melbourne and the machine is renamed "CSIRAC".

1964 - CSIRAC is decommissioned and donated to the Museum of Victoria. It is replaced by an IBM 7044.

1980's - CSIRAC is removed from storage and placed on display at Caulfield (later Chisolm) Institute of Technology (now Monash University - Caulfield campus).

1992 - CSIRAC is returned to storage in the Museum of Victoria.

1996 - In June the machine is placed on display at the University of Melbourne, as part of the 40th Anniversary Celebration of CSIRAC arriving in Melbourne.

1996 - In December, CSIRAC is placed back into storage at the Scienceworks Museum, Spotswood.

2001 - CSIRAC is on permanent display at Museum Victoria, Carlton Gardens, Melbourne.

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