Reflections on the History of Computer Education in Schools in Victoria

This paper traces the introduction of computing into schools in the Australian State of Victoria. Told from the point of view of two active participants, the story exposes a number of themes that resonate with experiences in other countries. From its beginnings in the 1970s on borrowed or shared minicomputers and the use of punched cards for teaching programming in conjunction with facilities at local universities, progress in the 1980s was rapid after the advent of the relatively low cost microcomputer. This article tells the story of how computer education developed in Victoria in the 1970s and 1980s, leaving discussion of more recent history for another time.