Image: Staff tangled in magnetic tape, Alka Agrawal on the left, with Genet Edmundson under the tape. C1988. University of Melbourne Archives.

This NAIDOC Week we recognize the 'Munnari' VAX 11/780 computer, the server that gave birth to the internet in Australia at the University of Melbourne in 1989.

Thanks to the Pearcey Foundation for bringing this important story of reconciliation to our attention and continuing to celebrate Australia's computing history. 

Commencing in the early 1980s, computer staff at The University of Melbourne were seeking unique names for the university’s main computer servers. This was at a time when communication between computers required spelling out lengthy network pathways to ensure files and mail reached the right destination.

Staff selected a series of Aboriginal names for the computer servers, starting with ‘mu’ to denote Melbourne University (‘mulga’, ‘murdu’, ‘mullian’, etc). At the time, there was no consultation with Aboriginal communities regarding this cultural appropriation.

‘Munnari’, a word meaning ‘sleepy lizard’ in the Ngarrindjeri language of South Australia, was applied to the largest computer, the VAX 11/780.

‘Munnari’ became a legendary name in Australian internet history. Australia’s connection to the Internet was achieved on 24 June 1989, through a permanent satellite link connecting ‘munnari’ to a computer at the University of Hawaii and hence to emerging academic computer networks in the United States. This was the birth of the internet in Australia, and all internet traffic would be directed through ‘munnari’.

The network would evolve into the hub of the Australian Academic and Research Network in 1990. Given its historical significance, ‘munnari’ continued to be used for subsequent servers.

In 2020, contact was made with the Ngarrindjeri community explaining the unauthorised past use of the name and requesting whether the community would permit continued use of ‘munnari’, given its significance for the University and internet in Australia.

The Miwi-inyeri Pelepi-ambi Aboriginal Corporation (MIPAAC), which deals with language matters for the Ngarrindjeri community, has endorsed the use of ‘munnari’ for a new computer server. They are pleased to have this historical association with the internet in Australia.

MIPAAC has also approved the use of the name for a multifunction space at Melbourne Connect, using the correct orthography, ‘manhari’ or its dialect variation ‘mandhari’. Addressing past wrongs can enable the strengthening of connections now. 

‘Munnari’, the VAX 11/780 computer (above), 1980s. At the University of Melbourne, some hundreds of computing students and staff shared access to a VAX 11/780. Housed in two fridge-sized cabinets, it had a megabyte of memory, around 100 megabytes of disk and ran at a million instructions per second – rather less than a thousandth of the power of an iPhone today. At first, computer centres could only share data when it was physically carried on a 5-megabyte reel of tape.