Perhaps the best known display of computer exhibits is in the Science Museum in London. However, the Science Museum aims to cover the whole development of science and technology and the computing element of that must, therefore, always be limited.

The Science Museum is an enthusiastic supporter of the Museum of Computing @ Swindon, partly because it would give greater scope for the display of computing exhibits owned by the Science Museum.

Set up in 1989 as a joint venture between the Science Museum and the British Computer Society. Since then the volunteer efforts of the working parties of the Computer Conservation Society and the efforts of the Science Museum staff have resulted in the successful restoration to working order of a number of early computers. The Computer Conservation Society has no collection of its own and refers historic equipment elsewhere.

The Bletchley Park Trust has done wonders to draw the public's attention to the magnificent work of the codebreakers based there in World War Two.

However, there remains a gap – namely a museum devoted exclusively to the development of computers in this country. In establishing this new museum it is the intention to work closely with all of the other groups described above and not in any sense to supplant them.

The first suggestion for a computer museum in Swindon was put forward by Jeremy Holt in 1989 and received encouragement from local computer companies during the next decade. However, it was only in January 2000 that serious progress was made by the establishment of a Steering Committee and a company limited by guarantee. The advent of the University of Bath and the development of the Oakfield Campus provides a unique opportunity for the proposed museum to be co-located on the Campus. Two members of the Steering Committee are from the University.