"CSIRAC: Last Of The First" available in PDF
CSIRAC, one of the first computers built, was documented in the book the Last Of The First (McCann and Thorne, 2000), a comprehensive overview of the machine itself, its history, and how it was used. This book, published by the University of Melbourne, has just been made freely available as a PDF from http://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2155137. Originally designed and built in Sydney as the CSIR Mk1 in 1947-49, it was one of the first few stored-instruction computers, and as far as we know is the oldest computer that is still substantially intact; it is a permanent exhibit at Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. It was relocated to Melbourne in 1955 and relaunched as CSIRAC in 1956, where it operated until 1964. Since then it has been preserved and documented by a dedicated team, including several of its original users; over the last decade, the core of this team was Judith Hughes, Jurij Semkiw (the engineer who assembled it on arrival in Melbourne in 1955), John Spencer (dec. 2014), and Peter Thorne. The Melbourne Museum maintains information about CSIRAC at http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/whatson/current-exhibitions/csi.... You can also read about CSIRAC on our web pages, http://www.cis.unimelb.edu.au/about/csirac/ – and you can listen to examples of the very first computer music, played by the CSIR Mk1 in a public exhibition in 1951. Justin Zobel Head, Department of Computing & Information Systems University of Melbourne
Hi: I note that this book contains an excellent paper by the late Allan Bromley, “The Origin of the Stored Program Concept” on pp. 87- 96. This paper - which I do not recall ever having seen before - is one of the, if not the, best accounts of this concept that I’ve come across. Cheers Brian Randell On 13 Oct 2015, at 03:00, Justin Zobel <jzobel@unimelb.edu.au<mailto:jzobel@unimelb.edu.au>> wrote: CSIRAC, one of the first computers built, was documented in the book the Last Of The First (McCann and Thorne, 2000), a comprehensive overview of the machine itself, its history, and how it was used. This book, published by the University of Melbourne, has just been made freely available as a PDF from http://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2155137. Originally designed and built in Sydney as the CSIR Mk1 in 1947-49, it was one of the first few stored-instruction computers, and as far as we know is the oldest computer that is still substantially intact; it is a permanent exhibit at Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. It was relocated to Melbourne in 1955 and relaunched as CSIRAC in 1956, where it operated until 1964. Since then it has been preserved and documented by a dedicated team, including several of its original users; over the last decade, the core of this team was Judith Hughes, Jurij Semkiw (the engineer who assembled it on arrival in Melbourne in 1955), John Spencer (dec. 2014), and Peter Thorne. The Melbourne Museum maintains information about CSIRAC at http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/whatson/current-exhibitions/csi.... You can also read about CSIRAC on our web pages, http://www.cis.unimelb.edu.au/about/csirac/ – and you can listen to examples of the very first computer music, played by the CSIR Mk1 in a public exhibition in 1951. Justin Zobel Head, Department of Computing & Information Systems University of Melbourne _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org<http://sigcis.org/>, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org -- School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk<mailto:Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk> PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 FAX = +44 191 208 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell
Hello, I just wanted to note that the paper by Bromley in an earlier form is found at the university of Sydney as a scanned in technical report from 1985. http://sydney.edu.au/engineering/it/research/tr/tr274.pdf It lacks photographs and lacks some final changes one finds in the version that appear in Last of the First but as far as I can tell is substantively the same (as a scan of a printed/typed document it lacks much of the elegance of the book form). People may find this a more wieldy version or of interest to track changes. I was directed to it by a referees report back in 2010. In this form it has (according to Google) been cited by myself, Doron Swade, and most importantly Haigh, Priestly and Rope in their recent reassement of the stored program concept. Those are the only citations of it I've ever noted myself. https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?cites=3984009270949092624&as_sdt=2005&sciodt=0,5&hl=en I have a copy of Last of the First and I think I noticed that the Bromley paper was in there but failed to think much more about it at the time or note any changed etc. I had already read the 1985 version at that point. -- Yours Truly, Allan Olley, PhD http://individual.utoronto.ca/fofound/ On Tue, 13 Oct 2015, Brian Randell wrote:
Hi: I note that this book contains an excellent paper by the late Allan Bromley, “The Origin of the Stored Program Concept” on pp. 87- 96. This paper - which I do not recall ever having seen before - is one of the, if not the, best accounts of this concept that I’ve come across.
Cheers
Brian Randell
On 13 Oct 2015, at 03:00, Justin Zobel <jzobel@unimelb.edu.au> wrote:
CSIRAC, one of the first computers built, was documented in the book the Last Of The First (McCann and Thorne, 2000), a comprehensive overview of the machine itself, its history, and how it was used. This book, published by the University of Melbourne, has just been made freely available as a PDF from http://collections.museumvictoria.com.au/items/2155137.
Originally designed and built in Sydney as the CSIR Mk1 in 1947-49, it was one of the first few stored-instruction computers, and as far as we know is the oldest computer that is still substantially intact; it is a permanent exhibit at Museum Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. It was relocated to Melbourne in 1955 and relaunched as CSIRAC in 1956, where it operated until 1964. Since then it has been preserved and documented by a dedicated team, including several of its original users; over the last decade, the core of this team was Judith Hughes, Jurij Semkiw (the engineer who assembled it on arrival in Melbourne in 1955), John Spencer (dec. 2014), and Peter Thorne.
The Melbourne Museum maintains information about CSIRACat http://museumvictoria.com.au/melbournemuseum/whatson/current-exhibitions/csi... c/. You can also read about CSIRAC on our web pages, http://www.cis.unimelb.edu.au/about/csirac/ – and you can listen to examples of the very first computer music, played by the CSIR Mk1 in a public exhibition in 1951.
Justin Zobel Head, Department of Computing & Information Systems University of Melbourne _______________________________________________ This email is relayed from members at sigcis.org, the email discussion list of SHOT SIGCIS. Opinions expressed here are those of the member posting and are not reviewed, edited, or endorsed by SIGCIS. The list archives are at http://lists.sigcis.org/pipermail/members-sigcis.org/ and you can change your subscription options at http://lists.sigcis.org/listinfo.cgi/members-sigcis.org
-- School of Computing Science, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE1 7RU, UK EMAIL = Brian.Randell@ncl.ac.uk PHONE = +44 191 208 7923 FAX = +44 191 208 8232 URL = http://www.cs.ncl.ac.uk/people/brian.randell
participants (3)
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Allan Olley -
Brian Randell -
Justin Zobel