Computer Museums and Artefacts

By January 14th, 2020

These pages attempt to give some of the history of CSIRO’s use of computing in its research, focussing mainly on the large shared systems and services.

Last updated: 11 Nov 2024.
Robert C. Bell
Status: Added Nigel Williams link.
Added link to Peter Heweston’s collection and 75th Anniversary invitation.

This page is an off-shoot of my Computing History pages, and attempts to build information about computing museums.

Wikipedia has a list of computer museums, sorted by country. There is also a list of online museums.

Wikipedia – List of computer museums

This has only 4 entries for Australia, only some of which are correct.

The Australian Computer Museum Society, Inc, NSW
The Nostalgia Box, Perth – Video Game Museum^[1]
Powerhouse Museum – Has Computer Exhibit
Monash Museum of Computing History, Monash University^[2]

Here are updated links:

Australian Computer Museum Society Inc

Wikipedia – Powerhouse Museum – now the Museum of Applied Arts & Sciences

Monash – Museum of computing history

Other Australian sites include:

HP Computer Museum, Melbourne Australia

Max Burnet museum pictures

ex Control Data Australia Employees

The Museums Victoria collection is here

Clytech division of Clyde Industries Limited – A Broad History & Gallery

Other sites holding artefacts of historical interest to the development of computing in Australia include:

Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA USA.

The National Museum of Computing in Bletchley Park UK.

Cray history – museum

– cobweb – maybe moved to the Living Computer Museum, Seattle, Washington

National Cryptologic Museum

Seattle Living Computer Museum – https://livingcomputers.org/

Peter Hewston (ex-Csironet) has extensive holdings of early computing equipment – see CSIRONET News 162 – Dec 1981. I have seen photographs of the collection – stunning. Peter also provided a cache of documents about DCR/Csironet from Terry Holden.

Here is a link to a brochure on The Peter Heweston Computing Collection, prepared for the 75th anniversary of CSIR Mk1 event in Canberra on 14th November 2024: see here.