The National-Elliot 405, which arrived from England in 1959, was the first computer brought to Australia for commercial use. The CSIRO purchased it in the early 1960s for their National Standards Laboratory at Alpha House in Sydney.

The National-Elliot was huge, of course, and used bulky electronic valves. 12 metres of tall green cabinets encased the processing circuits. It used standard 35-mm film with the emulsion removed and replaced with a layer of magnetic oxide for long-term data storage.

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