Max runs BACK Pty Ltd
mburnet@bigpond.net.au
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Max runs BACK Pty Ltd mburnet@bigpond.net.au |
Max Burnet graduated from Melbourne University with a Bachelor of Science (Honours) in electronics in 1962. He then spent four years as a Scientific Officer at the Weapons Research Establishment in South Australia.
He joined Digital Equipment Corporation Australia in 1967, and spent 31 years with them, to become the longest serving employee in Australia.
He opened Digital's Melbourne office in 1967 and their Adelaide office in 1971. During the period 1975 to 1982 he was Managing Director of Digital in Australia until missing budget in the 1982 recession! In later years he managed Digital's local content project.
In Aug 1990, he was the Director of the DECworld'90 event in Canberra.
For twenty years he managed Digital's user society, DECUS, which had up to 5000 loyal members.
In 1998 he took early retirement a few days before the Compaq takeover, not wishing to be compaqted.
During his time at Digital, he collected a museum of all the early DEC computers and was known around the company as "Museum Max".
In 1993 he was one of 15 pioneers featured in Computerworld Newspaper's "Pioneers of Australian Computing" booklet.
He has established a company called BACK Pty Ltd, which is Burnet Antique Computer Knowhow - and plans to use his museum collection to provide for porting of old media and all manner of technical, educational, historical and display activities.
Max lives at Pennant Hills in a house which contains 16 computers, much Ethernet and 11 operating systems, and a collection of antique Hornby O-gauge trains. He has a 29 year old son (who appears for pay and rations) and an 10 year old daughter who is the joy of his life.
BACK, Burnet Antique Computer Knowhow Pty Ltd, has an extensive collection of early computers and data processing artefacts dating back to 1910. It comprises over 60 six foot cabinets. It is considered to be the best collection of Digital Equipment Corporation material in the world. There are also over 6000 items of literature, handbooks, engineering diagrams and software, all catalogued and accessible.
BACK has no grand plan to have these items gathering dust in a museum, but rather to maintain and use them as working tools for a variety of projects. BACK is convinced that in 50 or 100 years, such items will be of immense value and interest.
All these items are currently distributed in a number of warehouses around the Sydney area. Inspections can be arranged. Some are on display in public places such as company foyers etc.
A description of the BACK collection and philosophy can be found in an article in the December 1996 issue of the Digital Technical Journal.
Preserving Computing's Past: Restoration and Simulation
by Maxwell M. Burnet and Robert M. Supnik.
See www.tiac.net/users/mps/retro/sources/dtjn02pf.pdf