The Centre for Computing History
Tour at the museum in 2016
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| Established | 2007 |
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| Location | Cambridge, Cambridgeshire |
| Type | Computers |
| Director | Jason Fitzpatrick |
| Public transit access | Newmarket Road |
| Nearest car park | On Site |
| Website | computinghistory |
The Centre for Computing History is a museum in Cambridge, England, established to create a permanent public exhibition telling the story of the Information Age.
The museum acts as a repository for vintage computers and related artefacts. The museum is open Wednesdays through to Sundays from 10am to 5pm in term time and 7 days a week during school holidays. On display are key items from the early era of computers (and even before) from ageing comptometers through the Altair 8800 to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum and Apple II series. The museum also holds vintage games consoles, peripherals, software and an extensive collection of computer manuals, magazines and other literature. It is home to the Megaprocessor, an enormous version of a computer chip designed by James Newman
The Centre is a registered educational charity. It is funded by a combination of sponsors from local businesses and private individuals. Venture capitalist and entrepreneur Hermann Hauser was involved with funding discussions. He became patron of the museum in December 2011, 30 years after the launch of the BBC Micro. The museum is run by a board of trustees chaired by Ian Williamson.
The Centre for Computing History runs regular educational activities for schools and the general public. These range from programming workshops using 1980s BBC Micros to gaming tours to coding using software like Scratch for the Raspberry Pi.
The centre also loans artefacts for film and TV productions and has helped with props and sets for The IT Crowd, Brits Who Made the Modern World on Channel Five with Peter Snow and in April 2009 produced the Gadget Hall of Fame stand at The Gadget Show Live exhibition at the NEC in Birmingham.
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