A tale of two computers - CSIRAC and Tec-1

This is a story of two Australian inventions that I think are worth remembering
as they both have a part to play in the evolution of electronic music.
One so big it will fill your house (if you possessed it). The other a fraction of its size that you can build yourself.

The first is CSIRAC.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:CSIRAC-Pano,-Melb.-Museum,-12.8.2008.jpg
jjron [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], from Wikimedia Commons

CSIRAC  stands for Council for Scientific and Industrial Research Automatic Computer).
This was originally known as CSIR Mk 1. It was Australia's first electronic programmable digital computer, and the fifth stored program computer in the world.  She ran her first program in 1949 which makes her 70 years old this year.

I first saw this machine at the Melbourne Museum in 2016. (sadly no pics) . You can today pay her a visit at the Scienceworks centre, also in Melbourne.  (Maybe take her a birthday cake)

 CSIRAC is the oldest surviving first-generation electronic computer (The Zuse Z4 at the Deutsches Museum  in Germany is older, but was electro-mechanical, not electronic). CSIRAC was constructed by a team of scientists led by Trevor Pearcey Geoff Hill and Maston Beard. Though it had but a fraction of the brain power of your average smart phone it was a revolution in its day.

In addition to being used for things like weather forecasting and banking,  CSIRAC was the first computer in the world to play digital music. This took place during Australia’s first computer conference in June 1951. The tune was Colonel Bogey, . Sadly there are no recordings.


The second Computer we are looking back at is the TEC-1

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tec-1_Z80_Computer.jpg
Otherunicorn [CC0], from Wikimedia Commons


 It is a single-board kit computer first produced by the Australian hobbyist electronics magazine Talking Electronics in the early 1980s. The design by John Hardy and Ken Stone was based on the Zilog Z80 CPU.

If you are a regular reader of this blog you will probably know who Ken Stone is. The founder of Cat Girl Synths (CGS).

Th TEC-1 used a  Zilog Z80 CPU, had 2K of RAM and 2K of ROM in a default configuration.

Those twenty round keys on the right are the main input. They are made up of 16 hexadecimal keys for numeric inputs and address, a GO key to execute a program, + and - keys,

This is the original prototype.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Original_TEC1_Prototype.jpg
Binarysequence [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], from Wikimedia Commons

The TEC-1 was first featured in 1983, in Volume 1, Issue 10 of the Talking Electronics magazine, pages 57 to 75. I plan to build one of these and will document it in a future blog and hopefully use it to play a tune or two ... maybe Colonel Bogey.

It the 1984 issue of Talking Electronics magazine,  (Volume 1, Issue 11, pages 11 to 36, and pages 50 to 55) are two peripherals designed by Ken Stone for the TEC-1 -an 8x8 matrix display, and a relay driver board. These allow the TEC-1 to be interfaced to other equipment.

Notes:
+ Colossus (1943) was the first electronic digital programmable computing device, and was used to break German ciphers during World War II. In December 1943, Colossus was shipped to Bletchley Park, where it was delivered on 18 January 1944 and attacked its first message on 5 February. Colossus included the first ever use of shift registers and systolic arrays, enabling five simultaneous tests, each involving up to 100 Boolean calculations, on each of the five channels on the punched tape.
A reconstructed working copy of one of the Colossus machines is now on display at Bletchley Park.

+ ENIAC (1945) (Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer) was the first electronic programmable computer built in the US. ENIAC was the first Turing-complete electronic device, and performed ballistics trajectory calculations for the United States Army.


Links:
Facebook - Tec-1 Z80 computer