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 16 Jun 2026).

NEW!!!

See the series of videos on The Computer History of Australia: in particular, the series of three on Csironet, with the first published on 28 Feb 2026, the second published on 29th March, and the third on 29th April.

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.
28 Jun 2023 – fixes to links.

24 Oct 2023 – adding glossary
15 Jan 2024 – adding Sidebar 11
05 Mar 2024: updating dates
Nov 2024 – added Sidebar 12
17 Dec 2024: updating dates
28 Apr 2025 – updated museums and virga
14 May 2025 – added ‘final’ Csironet News
02 Mar 2026 – added link to Csironet video
30 Mar 2026 – added link to the second Csironet video
29 May 2026 – added link to the third Csironet video, and corrected a link
16 Jun 2026 – revised the links to the Csironet videos

Robert C. Bell

Appendices

Appendix 1: Timeline

(Last updated: 28 Jan 2026)

Appendix 3: Staff

(Last updated: 14 Feb 2024)

Appendix 5: References

(Last updated: 04 Oct 2024)

Appendix 7: CSIRO Computing Museum / Artefacts

(Last updated: 21 Dec 2023)

Appendix 8: Locations

(Last updated: 5 Oct 2021)

Sidebars

• Sidebar 1: The start of on-line data and the management of shared storage
  Last updated: 8 Dec 2020.
• Sidebar 2: The start of the on-line network
  Last updated: 1 Dec 2020.
• Sidebar 3: Recollections of CSIRO CRS/DCR/Csironet staff
  Last updated: 17 Aug 2022.
• Sidebar 4: Applications Software
  Last updated: 8 Oct 2020.
• Sidebar 5: eResearch Collaboration Projects
  Last updated: 4 Jan 2024.
• Sidebar 6: Robert Bell personal computing history
  Last updated: 22 June 2026.
• Sidebar 7: Data-intensive computing, cherax, ruby, HSM, DMF and the Scientific Computing Data Store – a retrospective
  Last updated: 19 Jun 2025.
• Sidebar 8: CDC Cybers, operating systems, utilities and manuals; Cray
  Last updated: 09 Jul 2024.
• Sidebar 9: CSIRO Divisional Computing
  Last updated:26 Oct 2022.
• Sidebar 10: Csironet Documentation
  Last updated:29 Nov 2022.
• Sidebar 11: Sidebar 11: Csironet Development Environment and Sample Cyber 76 job
  Last updated: 06 Feb 2024.
• Sidebar 12: 75th anniversary of CSIR Mk 1; 60th anniversary of CSIRO computing network
  Last updated: 12 Feb 2025