Cambridge has been flattered by imitators for many centuries, but entered the new millennium as a "wannabe" itself as capital of Silicon Fen, Europe's answer to Silicon Valley.
Then, just as traffic chaos, audacious wage demands and house-price rises threatened to make the comparison with the Californian home of high-tech feel real, the Internet and technology bubble burst.
The small 800-year-old English university city had been so successful in luring technology companies to set up here that it looked in danger of choking under the weight.
With one of its star successes, software firm Autonomy Corp , now warning of a downturn and another, microchip designer ARM Holdings cutting down on new staff until better days appear, that no longer looks like such a problem.
Planners and economists dreaming of growth corridors and new towns are saddened, but local people, still enjoying almost zero unemployment, seem quite relieved.
Copycats of Silicon Valley have sprung up everywhere.
New York has Silicon Alley, Israel Silicon Wadi, and Britain alone has three - Silicon Gorge (Bristol), Glen (Edinburgh) and Fen, named after the flat wetlands surrounding the city 100 km north of London.
"There is no reason why Silicon Fen can't beat Silicon Valley," Prime Minister Tony Blair said optimistically as he urged Britain to jump on the Internet bandwagon in 1999.
But Cambridge - quiet, cool, grey and ancient - feels nothing like the bigger, brasher and busier Californian model.
Its technology businesses are worth only a tiny fraction of the wealth that was generated in the Valley, and even its millionaires, of whom there are quite a few, are very British.
"They dress just the same as everyone else. There aren't many flash cars, not like the Silicon Valley Ferraris," says ARM's finance chief, Jonathan Brooks.
"There is not the mentality of conspicuous consumption."
Wander away from the ancient colleges in the city centre, though, and another Cambridge starts to reveal itself.
The city is host to Europe's largest cluster of high-tech and knowledge-based companies and is ringed by science parks.
They have sprung up in the last three decades as scientists, officials and entrepreneurs tried to attract local businesses to cash in on local expertise - which all too often had ended up making money for foreign companies instead.
"We still have people at universities who think anything to do with commerce sullies your work," laments Mike Lynch, chief executive officer of Autonomy and Britain's first Internet billionaire - until falling stocks savaged his wealth.
Cambridge and its surroundings are now home to 1,200 technology companies employing 35,000 people.
Microsoft, Marconi and another dozen big corporations have set up research laboratories here to tap into the science and engineering expertise at a university which nurtured Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Stephen Hawking.
Its success hinges on the lure of its revered university and on a successful partnership with business, which has given it a definite edge over its age-old British rival, Oxford.
Roger Needham, the head of Microsoft Research in Cambridge, used to lead the university's computing team.
Sir Alec Broers, vice-chancellor of the university, has a long IBM career behind him and is a Vodafone board member.
"Broers is having a very big impact here," said Robin Saxby, the head of ARM.
Cambridge is also home to a handful of major venture capitalists like Hermann Hauser who have helped attract start-ups to the city of some 100,000 people.
"There is a buzz about the place, historic academia versus money, it is an awakening and a renaissance, it's very healthy," Mr. Lynch said.
Autonomy's chief technology officer, Richard Gaunt, says the tech downturn has stopped the jobs market here going the way of California, where hiring good people became very hard because of the massive shortages to meet the demand of 18 months ago.
He says Cambridge always stayed level-headed and rational.
"You don't see a lot of dot-com nonsense round here - that is a London thing. Here it's fundamental technology," he adds.
There have been several Cambridge technology start-ups that might have grown as big, but which were snapped up on the way - usually by U.S. corporations.
Others which might have gone public by now if it were not for the stock market fall include Cambridge Silicon Radio, Cambridge Display Technology and Cambridge Positioning Systems.
"Cambridge is now full of serious tech companies, whereas 10 years ago there weren't any," Autonomy's Mr. Lynch says.
To celebrate its success, the city has already founded a Museum of Technology, but it might take a while for anything new-fangled to find its way in.
Its proudest displays are the Babcock boiler, Small Brother engine, Mumford Feed Pump and an array of early Cambridge wirelesses - an age away from the mobile Internet.