[ { "post_id": "486", "post_category_id": "26", "post_title": "Computer scientist, businessman and government adviser", "post_content_short": "Guest blog by Barbara Ainsworth
<\/em>
\nTrevor Robinson<\/strong> contributed to the development of computing in Australia for more than 60 years in many different areas\ncombining good technical knowledge with an understanding of the needs of the computer customers in a rapidly evolving computer industry.
<\/em>", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/486\/Trevor-Robinson-1999.png", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/initiatives\/computing-history\/computer-scientist-businessman-and-government-adviser\/", "post_date": "2026-01-27 01:45:00" }, { "post_id": "484", "post_category_id": "26", "post_title": "CIRRUS Emerges!", "post_content_short": "Celebrating another great milestone in Australian computing history, today CIRRUS<\/strong> is installed for your viewing\npleasure on Level 1 Ingkarni Wardli at Adelaide University. More of her accessories and signage to be displayed in the new year. On behalf\nof all Australians, our appreciation to the Adelaide University Librarian, Siân Woolcock, and the Library Special Collections\nteam (Fiona Borthwick, Kate Moskwa, Kate Sinclair and Elizabeth Pascale) for their outstanding efforts in restoring and presenting CIRRUS.", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/484\/Cirrus-12-12-25-527x664.jpg", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/blog\/2020\/snocom-and-cirrus\/", "post_date": "2025-12-20 03:35:00" }, { "post_id": "476", "post_category_id": "26", "post_title": "Oral History of Australian Computing", "post_content_short": "Australia has a rich and dynamic history of invention, innovation, and commercial success in developing electronics products in computing and allied fields. Many of these achievements are within living memory. In this series of interviews by documentary expert Karl\nvon Moller<\/strong>\nwe hear first hand from the people who pioneered this era of modern electronics innovation in Australia.", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/476\/Oral-History-of-Computing-1-1536x1024.png", "post_content_type": "url", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/youtube.com\/playlist?list=PLG6TC16Jt3ifKnjhU7fuOeLkm0U4tBoji&si=BEq9BL6hhLSK_htG", "post_date": "2025-08-21 14:00:00" }, { "post_id": "473", "post_category_id": "26", "post_title": "Grandmother of the Web", "post_content_short": "Guest blog by Barbara Ainsworth<\/em>
\n
\nMary Lee Woods<\/strong> enjoyed a short career in Australia at Mount\nStromlo. Her son, Tim Berners-Lee, is known as the “Father of the Web”. Mary accepted the name “Grandmother of the Web’. She should be\ncelebrated for her own career in programming.", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/473\/Mary-Lee-Berners-Lee-c.1940s-377x456.png", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/initiatives\/computing-history\/grandmother-of-the-web\/", "post_date": "2025-06-22 14:00:00" }, { "post_id": "466", "post_category_id": "75", "post_title": "Biography - Trevor Pearcey", "post_content_short": "Mrs Barbara Ainsworth, Curator of the Monash Museum of Computing History has published a new biography of Dr Trevor Pearcey, Dean of\nthe School of Computing and Information Systems (1980-1984).
\n
", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/466\/Trevor-Pearcey-1984-Monash-Archives-246x349.jpg", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/initiatives\/computing-history\/biography-trevor-pearcey\/", "post_date": "2024-11-11 06:15:00" }, { "post_id": "337", "post_category_id": "26", "post_title": "Historical Papers", "post_content_short": "This section contains a collection of papers and notes about Australian ICT history.", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/337\/Edit-Property-100.png", "post_content_type": "none", "post_content_url": null, "post_date": "2021-12-27 01:50:05" }, { "post_id": "328", "post_category_id": "71", "post_title": "CSIRAC - Among the First Electronic Stored Program Computers", "post_content_short": "In historical terms, CSIR Mk1\/CSIRAC was one of the first stored program<\/em>, electronic<\/em>, computers.\n

\n\tPrior to 1948 various electromechanical machines (non-electronic computers) were built in USA and Germany. Early electronic, but not\n\tstored program machines, were ENIAC (USA) and numerous Colossuses (Colossi?) at Bletchley Park (UK).", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/328\/Pearcey-CSIR-Mk1-1952.jpg", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/initiatives\/csirac\/csirac-among-the-first-electronic-stored-program-computers\/", "post_date": "2021-12-23 02:48:00" }, { "post_id": "338", "post_category_id": "26", "post_title": "Early Australian Internet", "post_content_short": "In 1986, a year after the Internet domain name system was deployed, Australia's.au country code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) came into being at\r\nthe approval of the University of Southern California's Information Sciences Institute (performing IANA's function at the time).", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/338\/aarnet.png", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/initiatives\/computing-history\/early-australian-internet\/", "post_date": "2021-11-29 23:04:00" }, { "post_id": "3", "post_category_id": "71", "post_title": "CSIRAC: How to name your computer", "post_content_short": "Guest blog by Barbara Ainsworth<\/em>
\n
\nOn June 14, 1956 the computer CSIRAC was officially recommissioned at the new Computation Laboratory at the University of Melbourne.", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/3\/pearcey-blog-csirac-computer-plaque-for-opening-ceremony-1080x610px.jpg", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/blog\/2021\/csirac-how-to-name-your-computer\/", "post_date": "2021-06-15 00:00:00" }, { "post_id": "339", "post_category_id": "26", "post_title": "Connections in the History of Australian Computing", "post_content_short": "This paper gives an overview of early Australian computing milestones up to about 1970 and demonstrates a mesh of influences. Wartime\nradar, initially from Britain, provided basic experience for many computing engineers. This is an excellent perspective on how Australia\ninfluenced the development of the digital computer as we know it today.", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/339\/acm.jpg", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/initiatives\/computing-history\/connections-in-the-history-of-australian-computing\/", "post_date": "2020-11-29 23:04:00" }, { "post_id": "433", "post_category_id": "45", "post_title": "The world’s biggest non-IBM IBM network", "post_content_short": "Nobody much remembers it now, but 40 years ago Australia built one of the world’s largest computer networks. In 1981 Australia’s Department\n\tof Social Security (DSS) began planning an ambitious network to connect all of its 210 Australian offices in real time.\n", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/433\/dss.jpg", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/blog\/2020\/the-worlds-biggest-non-ibm-ibm-network\/", "post_date": "2020-11-26 02:37:00" }, { "post_id": "375", "post_category_id": "22", "post_title": "The History and Future of Wi-Fi: from Radiata to Morse Micro to Beyond!", "post_content_short": "Pearcey Conversations online seminar 30 September 2020 covered a retrospective from three key figures behind Radiata, the Australian\nstartup that commercialized the Wifi chip conceived at the CSIRO Radiophysics in Sydney in the early 1990s.", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/375\/conv-sep20-wifi.jpg", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/events\/conversations\/conversation-the-history-and-future-of-wi-fi\/", "post_date": "2020-09-30 06:00:00" }, { "post_id": "17", "post_category_id": "26", "post_title": "Australia’s first computer conference", "post_content_short": "In August 1951, a conference was held at Sydney University’s Department of Electrical Engineering. It was the first computer conference ever held in Australia and only the ninth computer conference anywhere in the world.\n", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/17\/heritage-project-feature-image-australias-first-computer-conference-proceedings-510x288px.jpg", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/initiatives\/computing-history\/australias-first-computer-conference\/", "post_date": "2020-05-27 00:00:00" }, { "post_id": "382", "post_category_id": "36", "post_title": "2019 CSIRAC 70th Anniversary", "post_content_short": "Celebrating the 70th Anniversary of CSIRAC: Australia's first stored program digital computer and the world's fourth. Presentations by eminent speakers honour Dr Trevor Pearcey's legacy and catch a glimpse of what the future holds for Australian innovation, entrepreneurship, and technology in society.", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/382\/2019-csirac-70th-anniversary.png", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/events\/special-events\/2019-csirac-70th-anniversary\/", "post_date": "2019-11-14 02:00:00" }, { "post_id": "24", "post_category_id": "71", "post_title": "ABC Science Show – CSIRAC the first computer to play music", "post_content_short": "On Saturday 22 June 2019, the ABC Science Show had a special feature Recreating the first digital computer music. Presented by Carl Smith in the second half of the podcast (31 minute mark).", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/24\/heritage-project-2020-blog-csirac-play-music.jpg", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/blog\/2019\/2019-abc-science-show-csirac-the-first-computer-to-play-music\/", "post_date": "2019-06-22 00:00:00" }, { "post_id": "329", "post_category_id": "26", "post_title": "How Australia played the world’s first music on a computer", "post_content_short": "We don't think twice about playing music via a computer - we have them in our pockets, and in our homes and offices, with music on tap. But\nplaying music on a computer was once an almost unthinkable leap of the imagination and the most devilishly difficult programming challenge.", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/329\/Geoff-Hill-and-Trevor-Pearcey-in-1952-with-the-CSIR-Mk1.jpg", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/initiatives\/csirac\/how-australia-played-the-worlds-first-music-on-a-computer\/", "post_date": "2016-06-27 12:45:00" }, { "post_id": "331", "post_category_id": "26", "post_title": "The Birth of the Computer Revolution", "post_content_short": "Computing underpins every aspect of our lives, from smart phones to the robots that assemble our cars.\n

\n\tIt gathers data on traffic, schedules deliveries and tracks parcels. It is embedded in cameras, remote controls, air-conditioners, and even\n\ttoasters. It matches us to partners, suggests our purchases, and tracks our fitness. And so much more.\n", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/331\/smartphone.jpg", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/initiatives\/csirac\/the-birth-of-the-computer-revolution\/", "post_date": "2016-06-15 07:26:00" }, { "post_id": "333", "post_category_id": "26", "post_title": "Today’s smart machines owe much to Australia's first computer", "post_content_short": "Australia's first computer weighed two tonnes, filled a large room and had a tiny fraction of the capacity of today's typical smartphone.\nBut why would such a machine continue to be relevant today?", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/333\/CSIRAC-Uni-of-Melb.jpg", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/initiatives\/csirac\/todays-smart-machines-owe-much-to-australias-first-computer\/", "post_date": "2015-10-22 07:45:00" }, { "post_id": "357", "post_category_id": "26", "post_title": "Trevor Pearcey Portrait", "post_content_short": "At a small reception held on 24th<\/sup> August 2011, at IDG's offices in North Sydney by Mr Davey Adams, current CEO of IDG Australia,\nofficially passed to the Pearcey Foundation an important portrait of Dr Trevor Pearcey.", "post_icon": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/media\/website_posts\/357\/pearcey-portrait-handover.jpg", "post_content_type": "page", "post_content_url": "https:\/\/www.pearcey.org.au\/initiatives\/computing-history\/trevor-pearcey-portrait\/", "post_date": "2011-08-24 05:57:00" } ]