The Museum's collections were jump-started with the collections of Gordon and Gwen Bell, who had been actively collecting since the 1970s.
 To bring structure and discipline to collecting efforts, an acquisitions policy was developed in which computing materials were classified into Processor, Memory, and Switch categories, known as the PMS classification.

The Transducer category was also added to cover input/output devices.

The Museum actively collected artifacts throughout its history, though acquisition criteria became more selective over time owing to increasingly adherence to collecting criteria and severely limited storage space.
 Acquired artifacts ranged in size from a single chip to the multiple components of a single mainframe computer.
In addition to artifacts, the Museum collected images, film, and video.

Noteworthy early acquisitions included parts of Whirlwind 1, UNIVAC 1, the TX-0, a CPU from the Burroughs ILLIAC IV, IBM 7030 "Stretch", NASA Apollo Guidance Computer Prototype, a CDC 6600, a CRAY-1, PDP-1, PDP-8, EDSAC Storage Tube, Colossus pulley, and components of the Ferranti Atlas, and the Manchester Mark I.
In June 1984, the collection of artifacts and films numbered 900 cataloged items.
 Examples of acquisitions of computers in the preceding year included an Apple 1, Burroughs B-500, Digital Equipment Corp. PDP-1, Franklin Ace 100, and IBM SAGE: AN/FSQ-7 components.
Several types of memory were acquired, including core memory, plasma cell memory, rope memory, selectron tube, magnetic cards, mercury delay line, and fixed-head drum.
 In the following years noteworthy acquisitions ofcomputers included: Amdahl 470V/6, Apollo Domain DN100 workstation, Control Data Little Character, Data General Eclipse, Evans and Sutherland Line Drawing System 2, Osborne I, SCELBI 8H Mini-computer, and a Sinclair ZX-80.
To the nascent historical software collection, the first BASIC written for the Altair and VisiCalc Beta Test Version 0.1 was added.

Between Fall 1995 and Spring 1996, The Museum sponsored the Early Model Personal Computer Contest.
 A call for the earliest personal computers netted 137 additions to the collections.
 The judges, Steve Wozniak, David Bunnell, and Oliver Strimpel awarded prizes for the earliest machines to John V. Blankenbaker for the Kenbak-1 (1972), Robert Pond for the Altair 8800, Lee Felsenstein for the prototype VDM-1, Don Lancaster for the prototype TVT-1, and Thi T. Truong for the Micral.

In 1986-7, the Museum acquired 27 computers, including a CDC 1604, MIT AI Lab CADR, MIT Lincoln Lab LINC, Prime Computer Model 300, Research Machines 380Z, and a Xerox Alto II.
As part of the development of the Smart Machines gallery, robot collecting was especially active, with robots such as Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute's Direct Drive Arm I and Pluto Rover, GM Consight-I Project materials, Johns Hopkins University Adaptive Machines Group's Beast, Naval Systems International Sea Rover, and Rehabilitation Institute of Pittsburgh Page Turning Robot.
The collections of Subassemblies and Components, Memories, Calculating Devices and Transducers continued to expand as well.

Spurred by the difficulty of preserving a fast-evolving technology built by future-oriented engineers and entrepreneurs, the Museum signed a joint collecting agreement with the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History to collectively ensure that important computing artifacts would be preserved.
Under this 1987 agreement, a common catalog and database of both museums' collections would be created.
The Museum's collections were jump-started with the collections of Gordon and Gwen Bell, who had been actively collecting since the 1970s.  To bring structure and discipline to collecting efforts, an acquisitions policy was developed in which computing materials were classified into Processor, Memory, and Switch categories, known as the PMS classification.
The Transducer category was also added to cover input/output devices.
The Museum actively collected artifacts throughout its history, though acquisition criteria became more selective over time owing to increasingly adherence to collecting criteria and severely limited storage space.  Acquired artifacts ranged in size from a single chip to the multiple components of a single mainframe computer. In addition to artifacts, the Museum collected images, film, and video.
Noteworthy early acquisitions included parts of Whirlwind 1, UNIVAC 1, the TX-0, a CPU from the Burroughs ILLIAC IV, IBM 7030 "Stretch", NASA Apollo Guidance Computer Prototype, a CDC 6600, a CRAY-1, PDP-1, PDP-8, EDSAC Storage Tube, Colossus pulley, and components of the Ferranti Atlas, and the Manchester Mark I.
In June 1984, the collection of artifacts and films numbered 900 cataloged items.  Examples of acquisitions of computers in the preceding year included an Apple 1, Burroughs B-500, Digital Equipment Corp. PDP-1, Franklin Ace 100, and IBM SAGE: AN/FSQ-7 components. Several types of memory were acquired, including core memory, plasma cell memory, rope memory, selectron tube, magnetic cards, mercury delay line, and fixed-head drum.  In the following years noteworthy acquisitions ofcomputers included: Amdahl 470V/6, Apollo Domain DN100 workstation, Control Data Little Character, Data General Eclipse, Evans and Sutherland Line Drawing System 2, Osborne I, SCELBI 8H Mini-computer, and a Sinclair ZX-80. To the nascent historical software collection, the first BASIC written for the Altair and VisiCalc Beta Test Version 0.1 was added.
Between Fall 1995 and Spring 1996, The Museum sponsored the Early Model Personal Computer Contest.  A call for the earliest personal computers netted 137 additions to the collections.  The judges, Steve Wozniak, David Bunnell, and Oliver Strimpel awarded prizes for the earliest machines to John V. Blankenbaker for the Kenbak-1 (1972), Robert Pond for the Altair 8800, Lee Felsenstein for the prototype VDM-1, Don Lancaster for the prototype TVT-1, and Thi T. Truong for the Micral.
In 1986-7, the Museum acquired 27 computers, including a CDC 1604, MIT AI Lab CADR, MIT Lincoln Lab LINC, Prime Computer Model 300, Research Machines 380Z, and a Xerox Alto II. As part of the development of the Smart Machines gallery, robot collecting was especially active, with robots such as Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute's Direct Drive Arm I and Pluto Rover, GM Consight-I Project materials, Johns Hopkins University Adaptive Machines Group's Beast, Naval Systems International Sea Rover, and Rehabilitation Institute of Pittsburgh Page Turning Robot. The collections of Subassemblies and Components, Memories, Calculating Devices and Transducers continued to expand as well.
Spurred by the difficulty of preserving a fast-evolving technology built by future-oriented engineers and entrepreneurs, the Museum signed a joint collecting agreement with the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History to collectively ensure that important computing artifacts would be preserved. Under this 1987 agreement, a common catalog and database of both museums' collections would be created.
The Computer Museum, Boston