Good day everyone,
While not strictly free software we cannot ignore our computing
heritage. The shoulder on which our technology today stand on.
To that regard, the Australian Computer History Museum (based in Sydney)
need any spare space for their collection while they find a new location.
You can help save a piece of nearly forgotten history while getting
close and personal with it as well.
Link and article below.
-Michael
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/08/01/oz_retro_computer_collection_in_dire_straits_bulldozers_on_horizon/
Oz retro computer collection in dire straits, bulldozers on horizon
Volunteers need help: car boots and spare space to save history
going back to the 1950s
Australian retro computer fans, it's time to mobilise: the shoestring
volunteers trying to preserve computer history here are the end of their
lease, money, and wits.
So if you have storage space and a sentimental feeling about, say, a DEC
MicroVAX 4000, part of a PDP-11, or a Control Data CDC-6600 backplane,
you'll be welcomed with open arms by the Australian Computer History Museum.
Things are so dire that the group's treasurer John Geremin told /Vulture
South/ the first priority to save the collection from the planned
demolition of its warehouse space is people (probably Sydneysiders)
willing to take car-boots full of the “small stuff” temporarily, to
provide access to PDP-11-size machines on wheels.
There's rather a lot of stuff – the museum's catalogue, is here
<http://www.acms.org.au/our-collection.html>, and you can see the
organisation is struggling even to organise the inventory.
The ambitious attempt to save machines from the tip – the group claims a
collection dating back to the 1950s – was always a volunteer effort, and
hasn't ever reached the point of creating an exhibition space.
Calling for help, historian Dr Peter Hobbins wrote
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#%21topic/archives-and-records-australia/65uMigAQqq4>
that the repository of computers, peripherals, media and documentation
spans the 1950s to the 2000s, and is being held “in a 200 square metre
warehouse at 888 Woodville Road, Villawood, which will be demolished in
two weeks.”
That countdown has already lost a couple of days, since Hobbins' post
was on July 30.
At this point, even temporary homes would do: “the volunteers - mostly
former programmers and engineers in their 70s - are at the desperate
point of suggesting that anybody who wants anything from their
collection can just come along and take it” (noting that if it secures a
replacement space, the museum would want its property returned).
Geremin told /Vulture South/ the collection owes its existence to the
vision of a former Digital Equipment Corporation Australian boss, Max
Burnet. While in that role, Geremin said, Burnet started a historical
collection by offering companies discounts if, instead of junking their
PDP-series machines when their shiny new VAX boxen arrived, they sent
them back to DEC for the collection.
(Old-timers of the Sydney tech scene will probably remember the
historical Digital kit displayed in the large foyer of its Lane Cove
offices – /El Reg/.)
Like-minded collaborators from around the industry became involved over
time, but with only volunteers and limited funds, they've only been able
to make and catalogue the collection. Geremin said if the collection can
be saved, they hope to garner resources to get some of the machines
restored, functioning, and on display somewhere.
That would need resources – once the present crisis is dealt with.
However, Geremin said, it's been hard to attract interest here (the
Computer History Museum in America has shown more interest, but it's too
distant to make a practical difference).
“There doesn't seem to be any acknowledgement of engineering history in
Australia,” he told /Vulture South/.
“Australia has made enormous contributions to advances in technology,”
Geremin said. “Through WW2, Australia was a major exporter of
electromechanical computer technology of the day. The biggest
installation I was aware of had 132 functioning terminals.”
Everybody knows about the CSIRO's CSIRAC, the first electronic computer
to play music and now preserved at Melbourne Museum, but Geremin said
there's much more to preserve. Even imported machines made an important
contribution to the country, he said. ®
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