Casting its net back as far as the earliest counting devices - such as abacuses - the event at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, considers computers right up to the present day and beyond.
Among the exhibits will be semiconductors, the engines behind modern computing and miniaturisation of electronic circuitry.
Particular attention is due to be given to Moore's Law, the principle that says continued miniaturisation will allow the processing power of a chip of the same size to double roughly every 18 months to two years.
John Hollar, president and chief executive officer of the Computer History Museum, says: "People of all computing generations will be engaged in unexpected ways when they see how the devices and software they used over the years - and use today - originally came to be."
