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Information & Communication Collection
Image: Grid of lights on CSIRAC
Source: Museum Victoria
Soon after its creation in 1870, the Industrial & Technological Museum began to conduct classes in telegraphy, to train young men and women for jobs in the rapidly expanding industry. Ever since, the presentation of contemporary and historical examples of communication technologies has been a priority of the museum.
Close relationships with government agencies, universities and local industries have resulted in the development of a collection that reflects many of the major changes in information and communication technology throughout the 20th century.
With key items such as the CSIRAC computer and Alexander Graham Bell's experimental telephone, this collection is of both national and international significance. It includes items of phonography, television, computing, radio, telephony, telegraphy, electronics, photography and cinematography.
Significant items
- CSIRAC (1949-64): the first automatic electronic stored-program computer in Australia and one of the first in the world. It is the only first-generation computer still in existence.
- Mainframe computers, including IBM CDC3200 (1960s), Cray Supercomputer X-MP (early 1980s).
- Microcomputers and microprocessor chips, from the 1970s to present.
- Noughts and Crosses machine: an early example of an interactive display using diodes, relays and uniselectors.
- Early calculating devices, from Napier's rods to arithmometers and totalisators.
- Domestic communication technologies: telephones, phonographs, radios, televisions, including items of considerable historic interest, including one of the first Edison phonographs in Australia.
- Pioneering items in the history of radio in Australia: Jenvey Coherer (1901), Max Howden receiver, Flying Doctor equipment, ABC station 3LO's Studio 303 (1939-86).
- 19th century telegraphic equipment and early telephonic equipment, including Alexander Graham Bell's experimental telephone equipment (1876), early Melbourne telephone exchange switchboard.
- Baird Mirror Television (1937), probably the first cathode-ray tube television in the Southern Hemisphere; experimental spinning disc television relics developed by Gil Miles in the 1920s.
- Fawkner Press, used to print the first newspaper in Victoria in 1838.
- Printing presses from the Victorian Government Printer, mid-19th century to the 1960s.
- Paris Universal Exposition, 1867, Reports of the United States Commissioners, Examination of the Telegraphic Apparatus and the Processes in Telegraphy by Samuel Morse. The title page carries the underlined handwritten inscription 'With the author's compliments', presumably in Morse's handwriting.
- Comprehensive set of technical and office items and images collected from the Melbourne Radio Coastal Station, (opened 1912, closed 2003), including an audio copy of the last official morse code radio transmission in Australia, sent 1 February 1999.
Items per page: 10 50 (showing 1 - 10) 4410 items
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Disc Recording - White & Gillespie, '20 Golden Family Favourites', Bill McCormack, 1976
12-inch, 33 1/3 rpm vinyl disc. Issued by the White & Gillespie Distributing Co., catalogue no. WG-45/TVS/5673. Double sided with blue label. This is the last issued recording of Bill M ...
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Booklet - Instruction, Hermes Polyglot 2000 Typewriter, 1952
Instruction booklet for Hermess typewriter belonging to Alma Arnould, who immigrated to Australia in 1971. Alma was born in Egypt, educated in England and lived and finally migrated fro ...
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Printing Press - Hopkinson & Cope, Albion, 1859
The Albion Press is a table model hand lever press. It was manufactured in 1859 by Hopkinson and Cope. The Albion Press was donated by the Victorian Government Printing Office in 1979. ...
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Photocopier - IBM, Copier II, USA, circa 1975
I. B. M. Copier II. Made by International Business Machines in the United States of America about 1975; able to copy both A4 and foolscap paper.
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Scanner/ Stencil Maker - Rex, Rotary Model 2200, 1960s
Rex Rotary Model 2200 Scanner/ Stencil Maker, used for scanning drawings and graphics and making wax stencils for duplicator machines. Consists of a mains powered office unit, in which ...
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Addressing Machine - Addressograph, Model 320, circa 1970
"Addressograph" model 320 envelope addressing machine.. Mains operated. Made by Addressograph Multigraph in Cleveland, Ohio, United States of America about 1970.
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Bookbinding Perforator - A.G. Burton's Son, Universal Peerless, circa 1920
Universal Peerless Perforator, manufactured by A. G. Burton's Son in Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A. The machine could take a sheet 110 cm wide [43"]. Operation Hand fed perforator; power- ...
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Composition Caster - Typesetting, Monotype, Mid 20th Century
Machine used in the Railway Printing Branch before that department was amalgamated with the Government Printing Office. Operation The paper ribbon prepared by the keyboard operator is ...
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Printing & Sealing Machine - Pakad, 1930s
Pakad automatic printing and sealing machine. Manufactured by Pakad Pty. Ltd. In Melbourne, Australia probably in the 1930s.
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Printing Press - Ticket Printing Machine, Bell & Valentine, Unknown Date
This Ticket Printing Machine was manufactured by Bell & Valentine, South Melbourne. The date of manufacture is unknown. The machine prints a ticket 2 ¼" x 1 ¼" [57mm x 32mm].
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