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	CSIRAC -- Facts, Info, and Encyclopedia article (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		The CSIRAC was constructed by a team led by Trevor Pearcey and Maston Beard, working in large part independently of similar efforts across Europe and the United States, and ran its first test program some time in November 1949.
		In 1951, CSIRAC was used to play music, the first recorded use of a digital computer for the purpose.
		Its historical significance was already recognised at that stage, and it was placed in storage with plans for its later exhibition in a museum.
	www.absoluteastronomy.com /encyclopedia/c/cs/csirac5.htm (595 words)

	CSIRAC - Encyclopedia, History, Geography and Biography
		CSIRAC (Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Automatic Computer), originally known as CSIR Mk I, was Australia's first digital computer, and the fifth stored program computer in the world and presently the oldest intact (albeit inoperable) digital computer in the world.
		In 1955, with the CSIR's decision that computing research was outside its purview, the machine was transferred from its home at the Radiophysics Laboratory at the CSIR in Sydney, to the University of Melbourne, where it served until 1964 as Australia's only academic computing facility.
		It has not been operable since its shutdown, but many of the programs that ran on it have been preserved, and an emulator has been written for it.
	www.arikah.com /encyclopedia/CSIRAC (666 words)

	CSIRAC (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		'CSIRAC, originally known as CSIR Mk I, was Australia 's first digital computer, around the fifth (depending onexact definitions) computer in the world, and the oldest intact digital computer in the world.
		In 1955, with the CSIR 's decision thatcomputing research was outside its purview, the machine was transferred from its home at the Radiophysics Laboratory at the CSIRin Sydney, to the University of Melbourne, where itserved until 1961 as Australia's only academic computing facility.
		The curators have decided that,aside from the huge cost of restoring the device, that the huge number of repairs that would be required to make it safe tooperate (CSIRAC used 30 kilowatts of power in operation) would detract from itshistorical originality.
	www.therfcc.org /csirac-105843.html (595 words)

	CSIRAC
		'CSIRAC, originally known as CSIR Mk I, was Australia's first digital computer, around the fifth (depending on exact definitions) computer in the world, and the oldest intact digital computer in the world.
		The computer was constructed by a team led by Trevor Pearcey and Maston Beard, working in large part independently of similar efforts across Europe and the United States, and ran its first test program some time in November 1949.
		A timeline and history of CSIRAC, as well as a colection of presentations from the 1996 conference on the machine.
	www.sciencedaily.com /encyclopedia/csirac (675 words)

	The Last of the First - Samuel R. A. Taylor (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		CSIRAC is unique for many other reasons, not least because unlike any of its contemporaries it survives to this day.
		Three years before CSIRAC was operational, he foresaw the day when we would enjoy nationwide access to computing facilities, electronic databases and reference material.
		Even though CSIRAC was an overwhelming success, work on a second machine was halted so that resources could be diverted into primary industries research.
	acsys.anu.edu.au /~sam/random/010123-csirac.html (499 words)

	Gordon Monro - Waveform 2001
		CSIRAC (completed 1949) was the first stored program computer in Australia, and the fifth such in the world.
		CSIRAC had a speaker to which pulses could be sent: the resulting sounds helped the engineers to monitor the computer's operation.
		Paul Doornbusch was able to collaborate with three of the original CSIRAC team, and together they reproduced the music with what appears to be a remarkable degree of accuracy concerning both waveform (pulse shapes) and timing.
	www.gommog.com /archive/wave2001.html (1426 words)

	Multimedia celebrates its fiftieth birthday... with CSIRAC (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		CSIRAC, named after the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (later renamed to CSIRO) which built the machine in 1949, is believed to be the first computer to ever play music.
		CSIRAC is still operational, sitting in Melbourne Museum in Australia, still running over half a century after its construction.
		On a somewhat related note, CSIRAC was technically the fifth operational computer in the world after a US district court ruled that the Atanasoff Berry Computer was the first digital computer ever created between the years 1937 and 1942.
	arstechnica.com /archive/news/1039722515.html (856 words)

	The Machine that Changed our World
		CSIRAC was largely the brainchild of Trevor Pearcey, a physicist who worked on advanced radar systems in Britain during the war.
		CSIRAC's first programmer, Geoff Hill, came from a musical family and he programmed the computer to play popular musical melodies which could be heard through a loudspeaker originally installed for a quite different purpose - to indicate with audible "beeps" when particular points of interest in the program had been reached.
		After the computer project in Sydney was terminated, CSIRAC was transferred to Melbourne University where it was used by university and CSIRO staff for another nine years.
	pandora.nla.gov.au /pan/10082/20010703/www.abc.net.au/science/slab/csirac/default.htm (1583 words)

	CSIRAC: Australia's first computer in 1949
		On 14 June 1956 the Mk1 was recommissioned and renamed CSIRAC and the new Computation Laboratory at the University of Melbourne was officially opened.
		It was in Melbourne that CSIRAC came into its own as a general computing workhorse - from June 1956 to June 1964 over 700 computing projects were processed.
		In November 1964, Dr. Frank Hirst switched CSIRAC off for the last time and donated it to the Museum of Victoria.
	www.cs.mu.oz.au /csirac (275 words)

	BBC News \| SCI/TECH \| Birthday for computing dinosaur
		It is exactly 50 years ago that CSIRAC, the nation's very first computer, sprang into life and ran a program.
		Unlike its predecessors, such as Baby and Edsac which were broken up or cannibalised for use in upgraded equipment, CSIRAC has got to the end of the 20th Century with all its valves intact.
		But unlike today's desktops which typically have 64 megabytes of random access memory, CSIRAC had to get by on about 2 kbytes of RAM and it was eventually overtaken by superior machines and decommissioned.
	news.bbc.co.uk /hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_534000/534645.stm (471 words)

	The Music of CSIRAC
		The CSIR Mk1 was dismantled in mid 1955 and moved to The University of Melbourne, where it was renamed CSIRAC.
		Ron Bowles and George Semkiw were CSIRAC maintenance engineers who have intimate experience and undocumented knowledge of the internal workings of the machine.
		The music was to be reconstructed as exactly as possible, to within an accuracy of better than one percent of the waveforms that would have been heard at the time the pieces were originally played.
	www.cs.mu.oz.au /csirac/music/3.html (995 words)

	CSIRAC - Australia's First Computer (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		It was formally christened "CSIRAC" on the 14 June.
		Following the University of Melbourne's purchase in 1964 of a Control Data 3200 from the USA, CSIRAC was donated to the Museum of Victoria.
		At this time it was realised that CSIRAC was the oldest computer still in operation, and worthy of preservation so it was carefully dismantled and stored.
	www.tip.csiro.au /History/CSIRAC1.htm (955 words)

	CSIRAC has returned
		This is the computer CSIRAC which 40 years ago launched the University and this city into the computer age.
		CSIRAC provided a service to the University, scientific and business communities in Melbourne until well into the 1960s.
		CSIRAC was by then the only first generation computer still operating.
	www.unimelb.edu.au /ExtRels/Gazette/Spring96/CSIRAC.html (737 words)

	Collections, Object Description, Treasures, Museum Victoria celebrates 150 years, Australia, Victoria, Melbourne
		CSIRAC was the brainchild of Trevor Pearcey, a physicist who came from Britain in 1945, part of the team of radar ‘boffins’ who were to transform southern radio astronomy.
		CSIRAC was at the cutting edge of modern computing, having been preceded only by SSEM (1948) and EDSAC (1949) in Britain and BINAC (1949) in the United States.
		Nonetheless, CSIRAC was able to perform impressively, calculating weather forecasts, bank loans, star positions, the flow of rivers in the Snowy Mountains Scheme, building designs, and producing the world’s first computer music.
	www.museum.vic.gov.au /treasures/collDetails.aspx?ID=40 (282 words)

	Computer Music Journal - Computer Sound Synthesis in 1951: The Music of CSIRAC - The MIT Press
		The CSIR Mk1 was moved to the University of Melbourne in June 1955 and renamed CSIRAC (McCann and Thorne 2000).
		During CSIRAC’s time in Melbourne, the mathematics professor Thomas Cherry programmed it to perform music, developing a system and program such that anyone who understood standard musical notation could create a punched-paper data tape for CSIRAC to perform that music.
		These first steps of using a computer in a musical sense occurred in isolation, but they are still interesting, because the leap of imagination in using the flexibility of a general-purpose computer to create music and the programming ingenuity required to achieve it are significant.
	mitpress.mit.edu /catalog/item/default.asp?tid=13550&ttype=6 (266 words)

	[No title]
		The machine, CSIRAC - the first computer to be used at the University of Melbourne - is the most complete example of an early first generation computer in the world.
		The machine is of such importance to computing history that the Australian Computer Society, the Australian Computer Museum Society and the University joined forces last week to celebrate the 40-year milestone with a conference, including a free public lecture, at the University.
		When CSIRAC was in use, it weighed seven tonnes and used electricity at the same rate as a small town - all for 2Kb of storage and an operation speed of about 1/100,000 of a modern personal computer.
	www.unimelb.edu.au /ExtRels/Media/UN/archive/1996/122/computingmonstermeetsmouse.html (394 words)

	ASAP Publications - Guide to the Records of CSIRAC (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		CSIRAC designed and built by CSIR scientists, was the first stored-memory electronic computer in Australia.
		In 1955 CSIRAC was transferred to the University of Melbourne where it continued in operation until 1964.
		CSIRAC Graphical Simulator, by Computing Students at The University of Sydney
	www.asap.unimelb.edu.au /pubs/guides/csirac (201 words)

	Encyclopedia: CSIRAC (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		The Last of The First, CSIRAC: Australias First Computer (http://www.bookshop.unimelb.edu.au/catalogue/niagra.php?ITEMNO=9780734020246).
		CSIRAC homepage (http://www.cs.mu.oz.au/csirac/) – From the Computation Laboratory at the University of Melbourne's Dept of Computer Science and Software Engineering
		Click for other authoritative sources for this topic (summarised at Factbites.com).
	www.nationmaster.com /encyclopedia/CSIRAC (683 words)

	Australian Computing, the Second Generation - Trevor Pearcey - Section 1
		Jointly funded by CSIRO and the University, the new CSIRAC computing laboratory functioned under the jurisdiction of Professor T. (later Sir Thomas) Cherry with Frank Hirst as manager.
		From July 1956 courses in programming the CSIRAC were offered frequently by the laboratory staff, who used techniques developed earlier by Pearcey and Hill.
		Operated successfully until it was decommissioned on 24 November 1964, when it was replaced by an IBM7044/1401 combination, the CSIRAC is one of the few early machines in the world to survive as a unit.
	www.asap.unimelb.edu.au /pubs/guides/csirac/pearcey/pearcey1.htm (1116 words)

	Information Age \| CSIRAC pioneer logs off
		He was a central figure in the establishment of computing in Melbourne and in the operation and maintenance of CSIRAC until it was retired in 1964.
		He has been a key player in the reconstruction of the CSIRAC music (now recognised as the first computer music in the world), the documentation of the software and hardware of CSIRAC, and in the establishment of the major exhibit at Melbourne Museum.
		It was recomissioned as CSIRAC a year later in the University of Melbourne's computer laboratory where it performed a wide range of computing tasks until 1964.
	www.infoage.idg.com.au /index.php/id;95487184 (375 words)

	Electronic Brains - the Book: Ch 7 Australia
		He told me about the early Australian computers including the gloriously named SILLIAC, and he explained how the CSIRAC was one of the first 4 or 5 stored-program computers to run in the world.
		And the more I read what was available, and e-conversed with John Deane, the more sure I was that here was another good human story with more than a little insight into the society of the time.
		CSIRAC encapsulated the development of computing as a world-wide process, with the leader Trevor Pearcey bringing his British wartime experience, post-war travels in the US and his assistant’s Aussie wartime experience together to bring the project to fruition.
	www.eyes-and-ears.co.uk /ebrains/ch7oz.htm (449 words)

	Hill: UNESCO Culture Sector
		Australia's first software engineer (Geoff Hill), who worked with CSIRAC from 1948, came from a musical background and he programmed the computer to play music.
		CSIRAC was Australia's first computer and it was the fifth all-electronic digital computer in the world.
		Developed by the CSIRO, it was designed and constructed to assist scientists with the enormous calculations of modern physics.
	portal.unesco.org /culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=18806&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html (212 words)

	ICAD 10 \| International Conference on Audio Display
		CSIRAC was moved to Melbourne in June 1955 where it performed useful service at the University of Melbourne until 1964.
		During CSIRAC's time in Melbourne the mathematics professor Thomas Cherry developed a system and program so that anyone who understood standard musical notation could create a punched paper data tape for CSIRAC to perform that music.
		Whilst the music may seem crude and unremarkable compared to the most advanced musical developments of the time and what is possible with computers now, it is amongst the first computer music in the world and the means of production was at the leading edge of technological sophistication at the time
	www.icad.org /websiteV2.0/Conferences/ICAD2004/speakers.htm (1042 words)

	Melbourne University Bookshop
		It consists of two parts: the first part incorporates a timeline, a description of the hardware, brief biographies of CSIRAC's design and construction team, and memoirs of several of the operating and maintenance staff; the second consists of papers which were presented at, or arose out of, the CSIRAC Celebration and Conference.
		The CSIRAC home page presents a wealth of information about the machine, including photographs and information on its musical capabilities.
		In October 1999 the ABC science program Quantum ran a feature on CSIRAC, and a transcript is still available.
	www.bookshop.unimelb.edu.au /catalogue/niagra.php?ITEMNO=9780734020246 (400 words)

	CEC-Conference: The International Electroacoustic Community Dis (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Apparently both Chabade and Mathews were enthusiastic about and not resistant to the CSIRAC project when it was brought to their attention by Paul Doornbusch who keeps Pearcey's memory of computer music being made before CSIRAC moved from Sydney to Melbourne alive.
		The "I" in CSIRAC is pronounced "eye" (possibly the Australia "oi" is an even closer pronouciation) and the computer itself was inspired by Pearcey's viewing of the Harvard Mk1 computer on his way to Australia.
		Geoff Hill (the programmer who made music on CSIRAC) was born in Hawthorn in Melbourne which is also where Percy Grainger (at the age of 12) conceived of the Free Music Machine which features in some archives of the history of electronic music.
	alcor.concordia.ca /~kaustin/cecconference/current/3320.html (335 words)

	the null device (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-18)
		Australia's first digital computer and the oldest existing example of its type, the valve-powered behemoth CSIRAC, now has a permanent home at the Melbourne Museum.
		Built in 1949, CSIRAC consumed 30 kilowatts, and was less powerful than a modern pocket calculator, though achieved some impressive things for its day.
		Apparently -- or so I heard from a retired academic -- it was shut down in 1964 after the Foreign Office in London had a word to the local powers that be, sternly informing them that Australia has no business doing research not related to primary industry (i.e.
	dev.null.org /blog/archive.cgi/2001/01/05 (378 words)

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