The photographers stamp on this photograph reads: CAMERA CRAFT PTY. LTD.20 Ivory Street Valley, Brisbane. When Reordering Please Quote 10937.E.
Thanks to Neil Wakeford, ex Branch Manager of these systems in Brisbane, for providing the print of this photograph.
On the top story of this building is the Julius Tote Machine Room with its central tote processing system. On the side of the building facing the camera, is the Julius Tote Odds Indicator. There is someone seated inside the door on the left hand side of the machine room below the clock, possibly one of the Chief Engineers looking after the system. There is writing on the floor level of the maintenance walkway for the indicator. The left hand sentence reads WIN ODDS ON TOP OF WHITE COLUMN and the right hand sentence reads PLACE ODDS ON TOP OF YELLOW COLUMN. At ground level of this building are the selling windows where the J8 TIM terminals are in operation. The indicator and selling windows are replicated on the opposite side of the building. The crowd in this image once again indicates the bet traffic that the Julius Totes catered for. The queues extend from the selling windows in this building to the vicinity of the first row of Bookmakers under their umbrellas. The Bookmakers look like they are also doing well.
Chris Robertson's Doomben Ticket
Chris Robertson purchased this ticket in April 1977. I joined Automatic Totalisators Limited in Sydney in December that same year. In 1979 I moved to Brisbane with the new on course computer based totalisator systems which commenced operation that year. So the Julius Tote that created Chris' ticket had almost 2 years of operation left prior to it being superseded. Additionally, when Chris Purchased this ticket, the system in the image at the top of the page was seventeen years older. The Julius tote at Doomben would have been in operation some time before the above photo was taken in 1960, probably starting in the late 1940s. If this was a computer system it would have been regarded as ancient, however these electromechanical systems operated for much longer than most computer systems. The Longchamps Julius Tote operated for 45 years and the Caracas Julius Tote was still in operation after 48 years.
Chris wrote the following about a group of tickets of which this is one: ATL ticket selling operations were largely similar between states in the mid 1970's, with Melbourne being somewhat more advanced having computerised trifecta/trio J18 ticket issuing machines. For that reason I have saved only one machine issued ticket from each racecourse I visited in South Australia and Queensland. The tickets are all J8, with the exception of the Albion Park ticket which is from an earlier machine.
This building saw the advent of the computer totes. The first computer tote for Doomben started operations here in 1979 replacing the electromechanical Julius tote shown in operation in this photograph. This new computer tote system consisted of two mobile PDP11 minicomputer based totalisator systems, contained in semi trailers which serviced five race clubs. I worked on their development in Sydney and then moved to Queensland with them. A cement slab with a large roof on top was constructed as a carport for the semi-trailer. This was at the right hand end of this building around the back. The data, television, internal telephone and power lines connected the track to the systems in the the semi via a large connector panel in this building.