MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. — Not everyone’s pulse will quicken with a glimpse of a 1956 I.B.M. Ramac actuator and disk stack. For many, too, the 1959 Telefunken RAT 700/2 analog computer will just look like a cross between an antediluvian switchboard and the control panel for a German submarine. And while those of us of a certain age who are technically inclined might recall elegant, finely made slide rules with fondness, can even a hint of nostalgia be summoned for the glowing five-inch screen of a barely luggable, suitcase-size 1981 Osborne computer?

These artifacts are all on display here with more than 1,000 others in the Computer History Museum, billed as “the world’s largest museum for the preservation and presentation of the computer revolution and its impact.” And however specialized or esoteric the artifacts, they take on new interest in this institution because of the kind of history it tells and the place it tells it.

Housed in the 120,000-square-foot former headquarters of Silicon Graphics, near Google’s home and just off the freeway running through Silicon Valley, this museum is partly a tribute to a hometown industry, like a coal museum in Newcastle, England, perhaps. Its donors, corporate and private, are partly its subjects. Its artifacts reflect businesses, not just technologies. And while the museum is appealingly designed to lure a wide range of visitors, there are times it reflects the perspective of an insider, paying closer attention to the trees than the forest. But the trees are so plentiful, and the offerings have such a wide variety that, at a certain point, the visitor can begin to feel like an insider as well.

The institution was introduced to the public in 1984 in a far different setting, sharing space with the Children’s Museum in Boston. The computer museum’s growing collection was moved to Silicon Valley in 1999, and the current building was acquired in 2002. But in 2011 the institution finally came into its own with a $19 million renovation and the opening of a new 25,000-square-foot permanent exhibition, “Revolution: The First 2,000 Years of Computing.”