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Australia's Largest Private Computer Collection In Pictures

Posted by timothy on from the that's-not-a-private-computer-collection dept.

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."

5 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Actually... by femto · · Score: 5, Informative

    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! :-)

    1. Re:Actually... by JohnDeane · · Score: 5, Informative

      Max Burnet started the collection, pretty much as 'Da Massive' says. It expanded into a Digital Users' Group then those folk formed ACMS in 1994. Max bought the initial collection when he retired and many subsequent donations have been made to ACMS. So there are two collections managed in a somewhat overlapping and cooperative way. And yes, the lack of a secure store/museum means that quite a lot of the material is in members' homes awaiting space for proper organisation, documentation and display. Sigh. (I'm the current President of ACMS)

  2. One Australian Film? by deniable · · Score: 4, Informative

    Gee, were they talking about The Dish? They could have included the title.

  3. The movie is called 'The Dish' by Jacques+Chester · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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  4. CIO : Your slideshow thingee sucks by Foolicious · · Score: 4, Informative

    I hate re-scrolling the browser after I click the 'next' or 'back' buttons for the slideshow.

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