The museum's origins date to 1968 when Gordon Bell began a quest for a historical collection and, at that same time, others were looking to preserve the Whirlwind computer. The resulting "Museum Project" had its first exhibit in 1975, located in a converted coat closet in a DEC lobby. In 1978, the museum, now "The Digital Computer Museum" (TDCM), moved to a larger DEC lobby in Marlborough, Massachusetts. Maurice Wilkes presented the first lecture at TDCM in 1979 – the presentation of such lectures has continued to the present time.