The Monash University Museum of Computing History: Ten Years On - History of Computing: Learning from the Past - page 220

Monash students as well as off-campus students to develop computer programming
skills. The system ran on a PDP-11 which could be a stand-alone system accepting
input from cards. This computer was mobile and could be sent out to schools and TA-
FEs and other tertiary institutions. There were over 30 outside users in the early 1980s.
Monash was running 12 PDP-11 and Spectrum systems in 1984 3 .Students without
access to a computer on-site could use mark-sensed cards which were marked by the
students at their institution and the cards were then sent to Monash Computer Centre to
be run at quiet times, and then returned to the outside school. The MONECS is part of
an autobiographical display in the Museum on the work of Professor Cliff Bellamy.
Recently the Museum was able to co-ordinate the return of a computer used in the
MONADS project [6]. The MONADS Project was initiated by Professor Leslie
Keedy in 1976 at Monash University; it was an umbrella project for related research
activities concerned with design of computer systems. This computer design and
development project was undertaken in the Department of Computer Science, Clayton
campus into the mid-1980s by Professors Leslie Keedy, John Rosenberg and David
Abramson. Students and staff continued this research at Monash University until 1985
and then at other institutions. The MONADS I and II computers consisted of a series
of circuit boards which were installed into a Hewlett-Packard HP-2100A minicom-
puter. Professor Chris Wallace and Robert Hagan had already modified the HP-
2100A adding a virtual memory system. The MONADS projects used this virtual
memory system as a base for further developments. Professor Keedy went to Darm-
stadt in Germany and continued the project. One of the “MONADS PCs” has recently
been returned from the University of Ulm in Germany to the Museum. The machine
was designed by Professor David Abramson and Professor John Rosenberg in the mid
1980's while they were academics in the Department of Computer Science at Monash
University.
The Museum collection has been catalogued and now numbers over 700 items.
New material is regularly offered to the Museum. Currently we are creating a data-
base with these records. John Sheard, an Access database developer, has volunteered
his expertise and created an Access database specifically for this purpose. The mate-
rial has also been classified with an in-house classification system. A large number of
items have been placed on permanent exhibition with the remainder in storage. Mate-
rial in storage is accessible upon request to the Director and is used for lecturing to
visiting groups. The Museum does occasionally lend material for teaching purposes.
3 Stages of Exhibition Work
3.1 First Exhibition
The Museum opened its first exhibition in October 2001 with a display of computing
material set in a chronological format. The display was entitled 'A Digital Evolution',
3 References on this project are held in the Monash University Archives. Papers include internal
memo by Cliff Bellamy 9 May 1984, also printout of users in1984 on file in MU Archives
MON 935 1999/6 MONECS 1981-82. See article Monecs Monash Educational Computer
System by Cliff Bellamy 13 July 1984 in MU Archives MON 935 1999/6 MONECS 1981-
82.