The Centre for Computing History is set to relocate to Cambridge this year. The centre was originally established in 2006 to “create a permanent, public exhibition that tells the story of the information age”.

As well as working with schools in order to educate and inform on all things technological, the centre boasts a large collection of vintage computers, memorabilia, artefacts and associated documents.

Director of the museum, Jason Fitzpatrick, said: “It’s important to be in Cambridge because of the city’s history and the part it has played in the home computing era”. He added that the “rich, computing history” of Cambridge was one of the reasons for the museum’s move from its Suffolk base.

Charles Babbage is regarded as the “father of the computer” and is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer, a design which would later lead to more complex machines.

Babbage arrived at Trinity College to read mathematics in 1810 but transferred to Peterhouse shortly after in 1812. Here he formed the Analytical Society in response to disappointment at the instruction of mathematics at Cambridge.

It was during his time in the society that his biographer Bowden notes “the idea occurred to him of computing all tabular functions by machinery.” With this flash of inspiration, history was made and Babbage went on to lead the field through the infancy of computer science.

From the “father of the computer” we can turn to another Cambridge man as “father of computer science and artificial intelligence”, Alan Turing who also read mathematics at King’s College, matriculating in 1931 and becoming a fellow at the college just four years later at the age of 22. Computer scientists will more readily acknowledge Turing for his development of the Turing machine.

Turing famously worked for the government at Bletchley Park, Britain’s code breaking department during WWII. He devised a number of techniques for breaking German ciphers including la bombe, which was used to decrypt the settings of the Enigma machine.

The history of computing at Cambridge would not be complete solely by focusing on the University. Cambridge itself has become known as “the Silicon Fen” largely due to the proliferation of high technology companies in Cambridge and the surrounding area.

This explosive growth began with the boom in the use of home computers throughout the eighties and nineties. One seminal Cambridge company Sinclair Computers brought affordable machines to the market for home use. Another, Acorn computers, though now out of business, has left a lasting legacy in the form of the ARM processor which dominates the mobile devices market with processors in over 98 per cent of today’s mobile phones.

The new Centre for Computing History will emphasise these achievements and the way in which computers have changed our lives. Fitzpatrick joked: “we’re not just talking about something the nerds and geeks are interested in”. The exhibits on show range from “machines dating back to 1961 that are hardly recognisable as computers” to “all the Ataris and classic nostalgia games machines.”

Professor Andrew Hopper, Head of Department at Cambridge University’s Computer Laboratory, said: “In the year that the Computer Lab is celebrating its 75th anniversary it is great to see the museum move to Cambridge”, particularly as “digital technologies of all kinds continue to be at the heart of the Cambridge Cluster.”

Professor Hopper, who himself worked with Maurice Wilkes to create the Cambridge Fast Ring in 1980, the forerunner to modern broadband internet, added that “whether EDSAC, the world’s first programmable computer to come into general service in 1949, or the BBC micro in the 1980s, or the recent Raspberry Pi platform, the museum will show how Cambridge creates huge impact and wealth.”

The new Centre and Museum for Computing History will move to Coldham’s Lane in the east of Cambridge, operating on a much larger site than its previous Suffolk base, and hopes to be open to the public in summer 2013.