The Computer History Museum in Mountain View holds one of the world’s largest collections of computing artifacts. It sits at 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd, close to Google’s headquarters and Shoreline Amphitheatre, and draws engineers, students, and curious travelers who want to see how Silicon Valley’s machines came to be.
The signature exhibit, Revolution: The First 2000 Years of Computing, traces the story from the abacus to the internet through room-sized mainframes, early supercomputers, a copy of the Apollo Guidance Computer, and the first personal computers. Make Software: Change the World! shows programming in action, and Chatbots Decoded: Exploring AI lets visitors talk with a robot. You can also sit inside a Waymo self-driving car and watch live demonstrations of vintage hardware, which are the clearest way to understand how loud and physical early computing was (CHM).
Visitor Highlights & Practical Info
CHM is open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. A general admission ticket covers the exhibits, the demos, the Bistro Café, and the museum store. Parking is free (CHM). Weekday mornings are the quietest time to visit, before school groups arrive. Check the schedule for demo times when you book online, and plan for at least three hours. You can pair your visit with a walk through nearby Shoreline Park. Call (650) 810-1010 with any questions.
