[COFF] Music!

Dave Horsfall dave at horsfall.org
Sat Feb 11 14:20:46 AEST 2023


On Sat, 11 Feb 2023, steve jenkin wrote:

> In 1996, a Unix conference in Melbourne had a visit to the reconstructed 
> first (valve) computer in Australia, CSIRAC.

[...]

> Can’t find a reference to that now :(
> 
> Dave Horsfall, IIRC, was at that event & knows radio.
> Might correct my recollection.

My ears are burning :-)

No. I don't recall that, but I may have written about it in AUUGN (I wrote 
heaps of articles in those golden days).

I do recall a visit to KRE's machine room, though; the PIN for his machine 
room was "1428" (the first four digits of the fractional part of 22/7, of 
course).

I don't recall going to Monash, though; umm, remind me?  The bloke with 
the TTY driver hangup?  He spoke at a few AUUGs.

> CSIRAC is the only pre-1950 computer in the world to be preserved. All 
> others were broken up for scrap - their useful life over.

Sacrilege...

> IIRC, the console of the Manchester Mk 1 was found near a railway line, 
> used as part of a retaining wall.

Heh :-)  I'm currently writing an emulator for that thing (just for fun, of
course); now, where the hell can I find some sample programs to verify the
thing?

-- Dave (VK2KFU for the radio bit)


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