The fellow who lived next door to me told me of a similar model system used to model Sydney Harbour which he worked on in the 1970s. IIRC it was instrumented with electronics and linked to a VAX or similar early machine.

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emmelaich 5 hours ago | parent [-]

The Aus Navy had a computer simulation of Sydney Harbour, dating from the 70s or maybe 80s. One particular feature of the system was a disk drive about 1m in diameter with about 12 heads. Cost a bomb, but I guess it was worth it.

When I saw a demo, they had an easter egg of a Loch-Ness type monster in it.

There's also a topographical map of the harbour at St Ives showground but it's purely non-hydrographical. But it's almost disappeared now through neglect.

	▲	cucumber3732842 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		>The Aus Navy had a computer simulation of Sydney Harbour, dating from the 70s or maybe 80s. One particular feature of the system was a disk drive about 1m in diameter with about 12 heads. Cost a bomb, but I guess it was worth it. Meanwhile the Soviets probably found a little inlet somewhere that was "close enough", evicted anyone who lived there and excavated it to match. Some junior engineer probably had to wake up at 1am to take a kayak out to "Little Kotlin Island" to change the tape in the recording equipment in time for the tide change.