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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 81 - 90) 4405 items
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Case - Piano Accordion, Besson, Stradello Dallape, Italy, 1920s
Case for a Besson Piano Accordion made by Stradello Dallape in Italy during the 1920s. This accordion was brought to Australia in 1932 by an Italian musician who used it in the band at ...
Images: 6 -
Booklet - Promotional, Hermes Polyglot 2000 Typewriter, 1952
Promotional 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 ...
Images: 3 -
Booklet - 'Graduate Diploma in Data Processing', 1977
Booklet forms part of the history of computing in Melbourne and of the donor's father, Russell Grevatt's (1927-1998), collection. Russell worked in computers from 1947 until 1977 with t ...
Images: 10 -
Piano Accordion - Marino Pigini
Piano Accordion, manufactured by Marino Pigini in the Castelfioardo region of Italy. Castelfioardo is known as the international capital of accordion builders. Brought to Australia by a ...
Images: 2 -
Coherer - Marconi, Radio Receiver, circa 1900
The coherer was the first practical detector of radio waves. The phenomenon on which it is based was discovered in 1878 by D. E. Hughes and rediscovered by E. Branly in 1890. It was d ...
Images: 3 -
Typewriter - Hermes Polyglot 2000 Swiss Multilingual Portable, 1952
Hermes typewriter made by Paillard Ltd, Switzerland in 1952. It belonged to Alma Arnould, who immigrated to Australia in 1971. Alma was born in Egypt, educated in England and lived and ...
Images: 8 -
Projection Lamp - General Electric,Type 123 DCH/DJA, Unknown Date
Projection lamp with internal reflector and two filaments. Manufacturer: General Electric, United States of America.
Images: 1 -
Lamp - Sylvania, Type C2/DC, Unknown Date
Very likely a gas discharge lamp, possibly used for spectroscopy. Manufacturer: Sylvania, USA.
Images: 1 -
Lamp - h.nu, Type 10.2 eV, Unknown Date
This item is a lamp, probably used for spectroscopic purposes using a wavelength corresponding to 10.2 eV. This corresponds to a wavelength of 121.6 nm, an ultraviolet wavelength in the ...
Images: 1 -
No Image Available
Lamp - h.nu, Type 10.2 eV, Unknown Date
This item is a lamp, probably used for spectroscopic purposes using a wavelength corresponding to 10.2 eV. This corresponds to a wavelength of 121.6 nm, an ultraviolet wavelength in the ...
Images: 0
