Filling a room the size of a double garage, it was tiny in terms of computational capacity. over its 14 years or so of operating life it did about the work that a smartphone today could do in a minute (calculations could be done at the rate of about one operation per second) - the computer was 10,000 times larger, or around ten billion times less efficient than today's processors.
Scaling up CSIRAC's memory to that of a smartphone would fill the Melbourne Cricket Ground to the brim, and running it would consume all the power generated in Australia. Storage was sufficient for rather less than one second of an MP3 music file.
CSIRAC was constructed by the Division of Radiophysics to the designs of Trevor Pearcey (pictured) and Maston Beard. This photo was taken on 5 November 1952.
