My ever reliable informants from Tasmania blog about their present visit to "the mainland" and tell of the exhibition in the Melbourne Museum, where, among so much else, they went all the way to the basement which houses .... Australia's own CSIRAC computer, built in 1949. It was only the fourth in the world (all experimenting with different technical design). For my friend it had special meaning, since one of the machine's team from those days was later Bill's professor in computing studies.
But why do I tell you this? Well, the blog sent me to the Wikipedia entry, online, for CSIRAC .... lots of good stuff for tech folk ... but what caught my eye was the parting shot. It was this quotation from a 1949 Popular Mechanics magazine, forecasting "the relentless march of science" as the museum says cheekily:
But why do I tell you this? Well, the blog sent me to the Wikipedia entry, online, for CSIRAC .... lots of good stuff for tech folk ... but what caught my eye was the parting shot. It was this quotation from a 1949 Popular Mechanics magazine, forecasting "the relentless march of science" as the museum says cheekily:
| "Computers in the future may weigh no more than 1.5 tons" | ||
No comments:
Post a Comment