The History Team

Based at the University of Melbourne , the team has been actively involved in the documentation of CSIRAC and played a crucial role in developing and maintaining the CSIRAC exhibition at Melbourne Museum. Their assistance was invaluable in developing this website.

Peter Thorne

Peter worked with CSIRAC as a weekend maintenance engineer in the early 1960s, while completing his BSc in Physics. He has played a major role in the development of computer education in the school, TAFE and university sectors and has consulted extensively to government and industry on IT related matters. Appointed Reader in Computer Science and Associate Professor in 1988, he became Head of the Department of Computer Science in 1990.

Ron Bowles (1922-2004)

In May 1951 Ron joined the CSIRO Division of Radiophysics in Sydney , subsequently joining the Computation Group in 1954 as Chief Maintenance Engineer of the Mk 1 computer. The following year he was involved in its transfer to the University of Melbourne. After CSIRAC’s official handover to the university in June 1956 he transferred to their staff, continuing as Chief Maintenance Engineer until its replacement in 1964. He stayed with the Computer Centre as Operations Manager and Deputy Operations Manager until retiring in 1982.

Judith Hughes

Judith (Judy) Hughes joined the CSIRAC history team in 1999. Her management abilities were essential in bringing together a wide range of materials including oral histories, images and original documents for the book ‘The Last of the First.’ Judy played a major role in identifying and organising the items in the CSIRAC Archive. She now participates in the project to record the history of the Department of Computer Science & Software Engineering at The University of Melbourne.

Doug McCann

Doug completed a Graduate Diploma in Librarianship at RMIT and subsequently worked at the State Library of Victoria from 1976 to 1980. While working as an education officer at the Museum of Victoria he completed a Master of Environmental Science at Monash University, followed by a PhD in History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Melbourne. Doug played a significant role in developing the book, ‘The Last of the First.’

Jurij Semkiw

In 1956, Jurij (George) Semkiw commenced work at the University of Melbourne Computation Laboratory. He assisted in reassembling and testing CSIRAC, which had arrived from Sydney a few months prior, and worked with Ron Bowles as second maintenance engineer on CSIRAC until it ceased operation in 1964. Jurij designed and built the first transistorised circuitry for CSIRAC, doubling the drum capacity, and was instrumental in developing hardware for numerous later platforms.

John Spencer

John’s association with CSIRAC began in 1959 and continued until its decommissioning in 1964. CSIRAC’s use aided work on the calculation of solar position and the measurement and estimation of solar radiation on building surfaces, leading to the publication of tables for all Australian capital cities. John retired from CSIRO in 1994 and has since written a CSIRAC emulator for PCs.