Connections in the History of Australian Computing - History of Computing: Learning from the Past - page 10

interpreted for ADA and SNOCOM and further British radar work on TREAC influ-
enced CIRRUS and ATROPOS .
Influences passed out of Australia too. Charles Hamblin's applied mathematical
philosophy influenced English Electric's KDF9 , and arguably all the succeeding stack
architecture computers. Chris Wallace worked at English Electric, Trevor Pearcey
contributed to TREAC and Murray Allen sojourned at Control Data. Exactly what did
they contribute?
Of course the Australians influenced each other. David Myers, Trevor Pearcey,
John Ovenstone, John Bennett and Murray Allen organized conferences, bounced
ideas off each other, educated a generation of engineers and programmers, and did
much to create the state and national computer societies.
Finally, this is part of the story up to about 1970. There is of course more, eg CSI-
ROnet , Owen Hill's Microbee , Alan Bromley's 14 part in the first build of Charles
Babbage's Difference Engine and the CSIRO Wireless LAN saga!

Appendix - Brief Specifications

System Used Brief Specification

Automatic
Totalisator

1913 on Electro-mechanical decimal adders with smart ticket

machine scanners. Not programmable.

CSIR Diff.
Analyser

1946 to
c .1960

Electro-magnetic analogue integrators. Programmed by
cable interconnections.

CSIR Mark 1
(CSIRAC)

1949 to 1964 Serial digital computer, vacuum tube logic, mercury
delay-line memory, magnetic drum, paper tape i/o.

WREDAC
(Elliott 403)

1955 to 1962 Serial digital computer, vacuum tube logic, Ni delay-
line memory, mag. disc, mag. tape, paper tape, plotter.

SILLIAC 1956 to 1968 Parallel digital computer, vacuum tube logic, Williams'

tube CRT memory, magnetic tape, paper tape i/o.

UTECOM
(EE DEUCE)

1956 to 1966 Serial digital computer, vacuum tube logic, mercury
delay-line memory, magnetic drum, punched card i/o.
ADA 1958 to 1961 Serial digital differential analyzer, transistor logic,
magnetic drum memory, paper tape, plotter.
SNOCOM 1960 to 1967 Serial digital computer, transistor logic, magnetic drum
memory, paper tape i/o.
CIRRUS 1963 to 1971 Parallel digital computer, micro-programmed transistor
logic, ferrite core memory, multi-programmed
operating software in ROM, paper tape i/o.
ATROPOS 1963 to 1974 Parallel digital computer, transistor logic, very fast ×, ÷,
√, ferrite core memory, paper tape & parallel i/o.
ARCTURUS 1966 to 1975 Parallel digital computer, transistor logic, ferrite core
memory, paper tape i/o.

14 Born 1947, died 16 August 2002.