Computer Museums and Artefacts
Last updated: 16 Jun 2026.
Robert C. Bell
Status: Added Nigel Williams link.
Added link to Peter Heweston’s collection and 75th Anniversary invitation.
Added link to ANZ Bank Museum
Added link to National Communication Museum
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
ex Control Data Australia Employees
The Museums Victoria collection is here
Clytech division of Clyde Industries Limited – A Broad History & Gallery
ANZ Banking Museum – this contains calculating and computing items, and a panel on CSIRAC.
ANZ bank computing history
Overseas
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.
– cobweb – maybe moved to the Living Computer Museum, Seattle, Washington
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.
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 is here.
John Morrissey (ex-Csironet) holds a module from the CSIRO DCR CDC Cyber 76.
Marco Cassetta (Ex-CSIRO IM&T) holds early personal computing examples.
Ron Kerpen (Ex-CSIRO Minerals, Clayton) has a collection of artefacts – see here.
Rob Bell’s collection is documented in the following Appendices from the CSIRO Computing History pages.
Nigel Williams has Tasmanian Computing History at retroComputingTasmania .
Appendix 5: References
(in preparation)
Appendix 6: Resources
(in preparation)
