One of the biggest names in computing, Bill Gates, is giving millions to preserve a history of the digital age.

The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has pledged $15m (£8.54m) to the Computer History Museum in California.

The gift is museum's largest and will be used to create an interactive exhibit, tracing the computing revolution and its impact.

The museum was established in 1996 and moved to its current site in Mountain View in California in 2002.

It houses an impressive collection of more than 4,000 computing artefacts, 10,000 images, 4,000 linear feet of catalogued documentation and gigabytes of software.

Currently the museum is only open three afternoons a week. It has two exhibitions, plus a large area where visitors can see a range of historic machines, such a Cray-1 supercomputer, a Apple I and a PalmPilot prototype.