CSIRO Computing History

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.  The pages do not cover the myriad applications that were run on the systems through the era, although the book “The Last of the First” does have extensive accounts of applications run on CSIRAC.

See the page for an entry to Computer Museums (Last updated 22 April 2021).

Updates

Updated: 10 Oct 2022.
Added Sidebar 9, and updated.
Last updated: 29 Nov 2022.
Added Sidebar 10, Csironet Documentation.
12 Apr 2023: Adding last update dates to chapters.
Robert C. Bell

Appendices

Appendix 1: Timeline

Appendix 3: Staff

Appendix 5: References

(Continuing)

Appendix 7: CSIRO Computing Museum / Artefacts

(Continuing)

Appendix 8: Locations

Sidebars

• Sidebar 1: The start of on-line data and the management of shared storage
• Sidebar 2: The start of the on-line network
• Sidebar 3: Recollections of CSIRO CRS/DCR/Csironet staff
• Sidebar 4: Applications Software
• Sidebar 5: eResearch Collaboration Projects
• Sidebar 6: Robert Bell personal computing history
• Sidebar 7: Data-intensive computing, cherax, ruby, HSM, DMF and the Scientific Computing Data Store – a retrospective
• Sidebar 8: CDC Cybers, operating systems, utilities and manuals; Cray
• Sidebar 9: CSIRO Divisional Computing
• Sidebar 10: Csironet Documentation