I worked next door to one in UQ. It was cobbled together from structurally strong steel parts, said to include former gun barrels, and major mining equipment prop shafts. I still have a pressure plate diaphragm, explosively burst like a bubble when the air is forced through it to make the hypersonic shock wave. The chamber is big enough for a wee 1/72nd scale model thing: typically a ramjet engine.

I used to have a teletype 33 from the same lab. At the end, it was only being used to submit orders to university Central stores for cleaning products.