Sidebar 6c: Robert Bell memories of DMP Aspendale

By June 22nd, 2026

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.

Sidebar 6c: Robert Bell memories of DMP Aspendale

Started: 22 Jun 2026.
Robert C. Bell

1967-68

As noted in the main article, I commenced working at the CSIRO Division of Meteorological Physics as a vacation student in November 1967.  I was employed as a Technical Assistant grade 1, on $36 per week.

I worked mainly for Reg Clarke, who had not long before left the Bureau of Meteorology.  Reg was located in an office upstairs in the far NE corner of the brick building.  Another office, besides his, was occupied at times by Keith Ball, who had had a serious bicycle accident in Cambridge and had brain injury.  I had a desk not far from these offices, where I worked with a log book, desk-top calculator, pencil, eraser and large sheets of squared paper.  Initially, the calculator was one with ten rows of 10 buttons.  Later I used a Diehl calculator which could print.  As mentioned previously, I was doing calculations to rotate wind measurements – u.cos(theta) + v.sin(theta).  These had presumably come from the Wangara expedition, which had concluded only a few months earlier.

 

I can remember taking sheets of my calculations in to Reg’s office, and he would come out some minutes later pointing out particular results which could not be right – he was right every time!  I suggested that next time he could use a computer to do the calculations, little realising that I was the original meaning of a computer!

For the first hour of each day, I entered numbers from hand-written sheets into a card punch machine.

Leigh Murray was employed full-time as a card-punch operator.  Also near me were Sandy Troup, John Wren and Peter Nelson (both the latter being Technical Officers or Assistants).   (It was not until some time later that I found that John and Peter were not on speaking terms – I think a dispute had arisen on a field expedition, possibly the Wangara one.)

A Google AI overview shows:

The Wangara Expedition of 1967 was a landmark field experiment in meteorology conducted in July and August 1967 near Hay, New South Wales. Led by R.H. Clarke and supported by the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) and the Bureau of Meteorology, it generated a definitive, globally cited data set on the planetary boundary layer. 
The expedition was specifically designed to investigate the structure and evolution of the lowest levels of the atmosphere over flat, homogeneous terrain. It produced a highly detailed record of atmospheric dynamics, boundary layer depth, and mesoscale momentum transfer. 
The experiment ran for six weeks over a seven-week period, with hourly observations being taken at five stations in a diamond pattern – pilot-ballon ascents, tracked by theodolites, with radiosonde ascents at the central station.  CSIRO and Bureau technical staff worked in shifts – 12 hours on, 12 off, 12 on, 24 off, 12 on  36 off, or similar.

 

Leigh Murray sometimes went for a swim at lunchtime, and hung her bikini to dry on the window ledge after lunch, until the day the Administrator, Frank Tighe, noticed that the swimming costume could be seen from the reception area!

 

In the later part of my 1967-68 vacation employment, as mentioned previously, I learnt where the off switch was in the radar tower – filling in for Peter Nelson who was on leave after the birth of a child.
At that stage, everyone stopped work for morning tea at 10:30, and at 3:30 (?) for afternoon tea, and everyone went to the tea room.  People sat at tables according to their classification – the back table was for technical assistants mainly!
I can remember many of the famous names from the early history of DMP – Bill Priestley (not that I ever called him Bill!), Bill Swinbank, Andreij Berson, Len Deacon, Reg Taylor, Ian McIlroy, Arch Dyer, David Angus, Eric Webb, David Beardsmore, etc.

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