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Australia's Largest Private Computer Collection In Pictures
Da Massive writes "UNIX PDP-7, a classic DEC PDP-8, the original IBM PC, Commodore's C64, Apple's Lisa, a MITS Altair 8800 made famous by Bill Gates, through to a working PDP-11 that plays the ADVENTURE and DUNGEON games. Max Burnet has got it all. Burnet has turned his home in the leafy suburbs of Sydney into arguably Australia's, if not the world's, largest private computer museum. Since retiring as director of Digital Equipment Corporation a decade ago, Burnet has converted his home into a snapshot of computer history. Every available space from his basement to the top floor of his two-storey home is covered with relics from the past. On top of his hardware collection are numerous punch cards, tape machines (including the original paper tape) and over 6000 computer reference books. So in demand is his collection that one Australian film called on him to recreate a computer setting (PDP-9) for a movie about the moon landing in 1969."
He's still struggling to justify all of it to his wife. It's a daily battle and hopefully, one day, she'll think it's cool having all that gear in the house. Just remember to wipe your feet if you visit.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a2/Cray_2_Arts_et_Metiers_dsc03940.jpg
Max Burnett is a founding member of the Australian Computing Museum Society and I think you will find the PDP9, and probably most of the rest, are part of its collection and that Mr Burdett is storing them since the ACMS does not have a permanent home. They were possibly collected by Mr Burnett in the first place and donated to the society, but they would still be part of the ACMS collection. Any ACMS members care to fill in the details?
Presumably you too could join the ACMS and after a while have a house full of vintage computers too! :-)
Gee, were they talking about The Dish? They could have included the title.
A brilliant little film about how Parkes, near Canberra, was the ground station that actually received the moon landing signal. Same guys as 'The Castle' and 'Bad Eggs', so naturally it's very funny too.
Classical Liberalism: All your base are belong to you.
That page loads so slow. It might be running on one of the relics on display in the museum. The pics are cool.
My name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my Father! Prepare to die!
Back in the mid '80s, a friend of mine at Caltech, Fritz Nordby, was planning on celebrating the 15th anniversary of Unix by designing a PDP-7 clone on a chip, and making a limited production run. He contacted Ken and DMR to see if he could get a copy of PDP-7 Unix, and they said they didn't have one, and as far as they knew, no copies existed, and that was the end of the commemorative PDP-7 clone idea.
If this collector really has a PDP-7 running original Unix, someone should make a copy and offer it to Ken and DMR. Or make it available on the net (after getting suitable permission). Maybe for the 40th anniversary of Unix, someone could make a PDP-7 simulator to run it. (Hell, you could probably do it in Javascript on a modern desktop machine and be faster than a real PDP-7!)
Sure! No problem!
As long as we get an American free day as well.
Can't we go even one day on Slashdot without an Australian "story"?
Why don't you Aussie /. editors just launch slashdot.org.au and be done with it?
Oh, right, of course... Because you know that only Australians (if anybody) would give a shit about slashdot.org.au, and the whole point of spamming this Slashdot is so that Americans will "notice" you.
Andy Warhol got it right / Everybody gets the limelight
Andy Warhol got it wrong / Fifteen minutes is too long.
imagine beowulf cluster of this! i can finally run Microsoft Dos!
There's your problem: this is the /Internet/. What you want is a LAN so you can continue trading material with your cousins.
...lying around the house. Problem is , while most of us of a certain age look back wistfully to times past when there was so much more variety in the computer ecosystem with cool ideas popping up left , right and centre - the truth is (and I speak from personal experience) that when on occasion you get those 8 bits or whatever out their box and fire them up you realise that actually , well, they're a bit rubbish really and computers today really are so much better. Still , its nice to preserve them , just not so much fun to use them!
I showed it to my son last year. He looked at it for a moment then asked me where the dvd drive was....
There are, it seems, some things a parent is best not sharing with a child.
A learning experience is one of those things that say, 'You know that thing you just did? Don't do that.' - D. Adams
http://72.14.235.132/search?q=cache:http://www.cio.com.au/article/268510/slideshow_--_tech_yesteryear_where_old_computers_find_their_final_resting_place
Oh, for fucks sake. It's not like they're any worse than the rest of the stories around here. I first started reading here because of a story about a bloke who rigged an automated sentry gun out of some servo's, a webcam and an Airsoft rifle. Where have those stories gone? You know, the ones about people actually doing things?
Instead, we get a sprinkling of news, usually about court cases, linux, or both, surrounded by stuff that is typically boring, physically impossible, or both, press releases presented as news, poorly written essays presented as news, or blogs talking about poorly written essays presented as news.
Compared to all that, at least this has some geek appeal.
It's a shame that most of these computers probably don't run any more - it's a bit like going to an aviation museum and seeing all these planes that will never fly again - it's a little bit sad. I'd love to see a museum with as much hardware *working* as possible - where you can see the blinkenlights, type something at the console, or whatever. Unfortunately, it's probably not very practical with many of these machines.
My own interest in the retrocomputing scene is the old 8 bit systems, and for those, it's very practical to play with them. The best thing about the old 8 bits is that they are fun. Modern computers, especially the ones running Windows, are no longer much fun to work on. Everything's closed up in secret recipes, EULAs, and corporate BS, and in any case there are layers and layers and layers of abstraction before you get to the hardware. Linux or BSD is of course infinitely better, and the reason I love open source software is it gives me the freedom to tinker. However, it's still extremely complex, and it can take a lot of code just to get something simple to happen - for instance, if you're making a piece of hardware, you've got to write a device driver before you can even start experimenting with your creation.
So I still love to tinker with 8 bit systems because it's fun and you can do some surprising things with them. Like, this weekend, I did streaming video on my Sinclair Spectrum: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hf8rz0sb298 - with an ethernet card that I made for the machine.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
That's a brilliant idea!
We can do all the countries, not just Aus and USA.
Tomorrow could be 'Nigerian Free Week' where no stories on, about, referring to, alluding to, reflective upon and commented would a start.
So much for Net neutrality!
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.
Funtage Factor: Purple
It's a shame that CIO Magazine which goes to many business people who lead large computer companies made no mention that this museum needs help. Maybe they weren't asked, perhaps. Most of those machines will probably go to the wreckers. A few dedicated individuals maintain this museum at $1000/month out of their own pocket. Over the years of people asking for financial help and space not a single company is interested in helping to preserve this history. Nor has any Federal or State Govt come to help as they don't see that Australias track record in computing is important. Having immigrants answer a question about Don Bradman on their citizenship test is far more important. There are enough computer companies in Australia that owe so much to computer history that they should find a permanent place for this treasure and support it.
Fun=Linux, caving and anything technical.
Check out the Hammant & Morgan pair above and to the right of the Apple ///.
Two classics, a Clipper and a Duette. Both probably older than most of the computers in the collection. The man is a true connisseur.
http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2008/03/19/9039_gold-coast-top-story.html
There you go. And it's Australian :)
FTFA: The first floppy disk was 9 inches in diameter and very "floppy".
At my first job in the late '80's I worked on old Honeywell TDC4500's in a petrochemical plant in South Africa. I think they stopped making those machines in 1979, but due to sanctions and budget restrictions we kept using those trusty workhorses, which used 9 inch floppies.
This was round about the time that the 3.5 inch floppy came out, which was less "floppy". In South Africa we referred to them (innocently) as "stiffies" - something that never caught on in the rest of the world...
Absolutely lovely. All those toys and no regard to specific make or model. I'd heard of ultrasonic memory but have never seen it before. The early cores were cool to look at. I see several machines turned on or at least lit up; this is unusual.
And he has a train set in there, too!?!There are no pics of this (nor his bedroom, either...) and only the one reference. Must be quite a guy to know. Old time geek! From when they used to find real bugs (moths and such) and carry around a stylus with oil in it in their breast pocket.
Wonder if he can use this old IBM 128 console? How many times have I sent jobs to the print spooler and visualized a lazy little elf just chucking it on the stack while it went to sleep... Now I see the real thing - AND IT's NOT AN ELF! Another delusion shattered.
And the last photo, of his office door plates... My 1st php project was to write a kinda ticketing system. On the output, I had to use the company directory to find the recipient's manager's email and add it to the tkt. Accidentally wrote the output heading for this datum as 'Mangaler'. In 3 years of daily use (600k tkts), only 3 folks commented on it (shows how much people actually see) and only 1 change request to get it fixed (never completed).
ahhhh. thank you for the trip down core memory lane. This may be worth the price to go visit.
Italian brothers Judica Cordiglia
There is also a marvellous documentary about these two guys.
I hate re-scrolling the browser after I click the 'next' or 'back' buttons for the slideshow.
Please don't use "umm" or "err" or "erm".
Wassamatter? 1 single story out of 20 per day for an international technology leader on an international technology site?
You could always go back to reading idle...
I have working on a lot of those systems. 30 years ago, if you couldn't recite the boot loader for the pdp 8/e you were just noob.
I don't care where it comes from. I think that this is cool. Years ago, I had a PDP-11/10 and a DECSystem 350. Unfortunately, they got lost in a move. I still miss them. :-(
un-ALTERED reproduction and dissimination of this IMPORTANT information is ENCOURAGED
I take it many of you have never got to a Vintage Computer Festival http://www.vintage.org/ Where people bring in their home computers to show off - as an example with one this guy's computers: http://www.vintage.org/pictures/LARGE/VCF%207.0%20Exhibitor%20-%20Pavl%20Zachary.JPG (it's tough being a DEC fan)
The guy who runs the Festival, Sellam Ismael (hope I spelled it right), certainly has a sizable warehouse for his collection.
The West Coast US VCF has been held at the Computer History Museum, which is truly a massive collection of computers you are not likely to see anywhere else: http://www.computerhistory.org/
My collection is mainly Commodore 8-bits, about 30 or so, pretty tiny.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Never heard of 9 inch floppies, is that a mistake and they meant 8 inch? I can't find anything about 9 inch floppy in a quick search on Google.
As long as we get an American free day as well.
But America is relevant. (When was the last time you saw Germans going apeshit over the election of a new Australian PM?)
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
The only time my wife objects is when she stubs her toe on the old 029 card punch holding my study door open.
I used to use it with a Burroughs B3700 like this back in the '70s. Them were the days, when men were men, and small furry things with teeth were small furry...
Ah yes, as I was saying, get off my lawn. [snore]
I think collections like this will very soon start to become more mainstream. Consider that for decades farmers would accumulate rusting hulks of past generations of implements. At some later date those have been lovingly restored in museums or even put into a new life of use at places such as Living History Farms in Iowa. So much innovation has happened within living history that it would be a shame for that insight to be lost. Sure in most instances the new rightfully supplants the old, but an exotic cooling solution from decades past might be the cat's meow tomorrow. An understand of where we have been helps us understand where we are now.
When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
http://www.homecomputer.de/
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Incorrectly calls the TRS-80, and other micro-computers, "mini-computers" which are something else entirely!
There is a personal computer museum in Brantford Ontario Canada. The computers work and they let you play with them. http://www.pcmuseum.ca/ I took my staff there for a party. The programmers loved it! Their spouses and girlfriends were good sports.
.. the truth is (and I speak from personal experience) that when on occasion you get those 8 bits or whatever out their box and fire them up you realise that actually , well, they're a bit rubbish really and computers today really are so much better.
I have to respectfully disagree. Let's just make a comparison, shall we? Let's call [some old 8-bitter of your choice] the oldie, and [your average today's home PC] the newbie:
Performance: no contest, the newbie wins bigtime.
Power efficiency / green computing: this is not so clear cut as you may think. In terms of performance per watt, the newbie wins. But overal: many oldies are in the 10~20 Watt range, running full tilt or not. The videocard in my PC alone uses more than that, and it's a passively cooled one. When doing nothing, most newbies will pass the 100 Watt mark easily. And in full use, 300+ W is nothing special. Sure, there exist small / low-power shoebox sized PC's, but that's not what Joe sixpack has on his desk. We'll give the newbie a 1/2 point in case it's a laptop. Noise: the newbie usually produces a variety of HD/fan noises, ranging from barely audible to annoying. The oldie: silent (a step better than very, very quiet). So the newbie is more efficient, but the oldie has a smaller overall footprint.
Size: newbie has chunky PC case, and separate keyboard. Oldies: mostly keyboard-size case with all the main electronics integrated.
Programmer friendly? Newbie: go to website, download development tools, install, start reading, construct 'hello world' app in editor or IDE, compile, execute produced binary. Oldie: switch machine on, type command, hit "Enter", see result. Include line number, and your first program is a fact.
Boot time: many oldies do it within 1~3 seconds. Newbie: replace 'seconds' with 'minutes'.
Build quality: many oldies still work 20, 25 years after purchase. With some heavy use years at the start. Newbie: often breaks down even before its economic lifespan has passed. Not seldom within, or shortly after warranty expires. Ridiculous, if you ask me.
Software maintenance - newbie: must be constantly updated, and sometimes re-installed just to keep doing what it did before. Most users need at least a firewall, virus-scanner and spyware remover to keep everything in shape. Oldie: there isn't any. Operating sits in ROM, can't be modified, hacked or corrupted by normal users. OS re-install aren't needed - ever. Usually 1 or 2 bugs in the OS are known, but you may need years to find one yourself. Apps come on tape, disk or cartridge. Play tape, insert disk or cartridge, wait, play. How much easier / simpler do you want it? Okay, I'll give the newbie a 1/4 point here because it lets you click on fancy icons. ;-)
Conclusion: the newbie has raw power, and can do lots of wonderful things that the oldie just can't touch. But: most of that capacity goes to waste. And: the newbies are built as throw-away items. Your oldie of choice hasn't got that raw power, but in terms of 'fun per MHz', it has any computer that came after it beat. EASILY.
PDP-10, my first love. Working as a part timer in operations, it was so much more friendly than the CDC machine sitting in the other half of the computer room. Later, in a small business I pushed to go from Honeywell to the pdp-1170 in about 1977 or so. The Honeywell salesman's quote was "No one would ever use a timesharing machine for business". But we were early adopters. Quite the ride. Had to develop our own database (indexed file manager) and get it working in 32k. With screen routines in programs, had to move the file manager to another process. Probably one of the 1'st file servers ever written :)
That vt100 brings back memories. What a leap, to be able to change the baud rate without using a screw driver (or dime) on the underside of a VT52.
I started out at RCA on 301's in 1965, progressed to CDC on the 6600's, then ended up at DEC where I had to learn PDP-8's before I got to PDP-10's. Lots of memories in the photos in the article.
I remember the KSR-33's and 35's with paper tape well.
I tried my best to get my company to buy a Lisa for desktop publishing. To no avail.
dc stultz
Largo, FL
Are you sure that was 9" ? I've got a box of 8" floppies at home. This format is predecessor of the 5 1/4" format most people will remember, and it looks remarkably similar (also size) to what is described in the article as a 9" floppy.
Not saying 9" floppies don't exist, but that would make it seem this was some kind of prototype format, not anything in popular use. The all-knowing Wikipedia doesn't mention 9" floppy disks at all, only 8". Perhaps I'm mistaken, but it wouldn't surprise me if the 9" in the article is a typo/mistake, and should read 8". Do you know of a reference for that 9" format in conjunction with the Honeywell TDC4500 you mention above? Say, a scan of an old specsheet or something?
And yes, they're very 'floppy'. Similar to 5 1/4" floppies, and the large size makes them flex further. Stick a few A4's in a large envelope, and you get a similar feel.
Yes, I recall they were 8" floppies on the PDP-8 I used from 1980 to 1987. A capacity of 140Kb if I remember correctly. When 5.25" floppies appeared, they looked like toys, or something which belonged on a key ring.
Hi,
What a GREAT collection, with many of them bringing back both fond and frustrating memories.
In foto # 3, the desktop Analog computer labeled "EIA 180" is incorrectly labeled and should be the "EAI 180".
(signed)
An ex-EAI long time Hardware and Software developer.