Howie C.
Yelp
How exciting is the life of a microprocessor? Not very. But the Intel Museum does a great job of presenting one of the marvels of the 20th Century.
This museum is free and takes at most an hour. It presents the history of Intel, it's founder, a history of their processor chips and has interactive screens and areas where kids and adults can get more hands on experience of what goes into making a chip physically and on the programming side. There numerous screen swipe stations that are popular the kids. While you're trying to explain how you first used a 486 chip in the 1990s in your computer, your kids have wandered off trying to spell their name at the 1's and 0's display. The back corner of the museum covers how chips are manufactured and explains and shows the clean rooms of chip manufacturing floors. There are various classic products displayed that have used Intel processors, from computers, to watches to video game machines.
The staff was helpful, as they came by to check on us multiple times to see if we had any questions. If you arrange for a guided tour, that is very helpful because the guide simplifies the explanation of all the technical stuff. They host kids and school tours and they have a glass walled meeting room in the middle where they can do fun tech workshops with kids.
The museum store has a variety of Intel shirts, jackets, hats, water bottles, pens, pins, bags, toys. The prices seemed very reasonable, at just a bit above cost. There were $10 t-shirts, $4 pens, $3 pins, things that would cost double at other tech onsite stores (like Apple and Google).
If you want to get some tech history in for free or don't have time to cover the Computer History Museum that's 7 miles away, stop by the Intel Museum. One caveat... It's only open on weekdays.
***Hot Tip*** Go in the main entrance lobby seating area and sit on the couches. Then look up. You'll see a giant every-angle-of-the-ceiling video of their manufacturing facilities. It's quite relaxing and therapeutic.