The Tech Issue
ARCHIVIO opens its third editorial cycle: four thematic issues, each curated by a Guest Editor with deep expertise, offering access to worlds where past, present, and future converge.
The third issue, ARCHIVIO N°11, focuses on technology and is curated by Massimo Banzi, co-founder of Arduino, together with Cecilia Botta, technology historian and Head of Memories at Promemoria Group, the magazine’s publisher. Daniela Hamaui oversees editorial direction, while Alessandro Gori shapes the art direction.
The cover, designed by artist Ailadi, pays tribute to the early aesthetics of the digital age. Created using PETSCII, the character set of Commodore 8-bit computers, it evokes the visual language of technology in its formative years.
ARCHIVIO N°11 maps the international landscape of technology archives, tracing the roots of the digital revolution and exploring the places where our technological past is preserved, along with the collectors and institutions that recognized its cultural value.
The issue is structured in three sections — Stories, Institutions, Collectors & Collectives — and includes a special poster: an (in)complete mapping of Italy’s technology archives, researched by Promemoria Group and visually interpreted by Accurat.
Massimo Banzi,“Often the most important innovations are the ones people talk about the least. The 6502 powered machines that defined a generation: these computers processed dreams, turning teenagers into programmers and hobbyists into entrepreneurs.”
Guest Editor
Glimpse of the Month
The Arduino Archive
Preserving the Fragments of Innovation
By Massimo Banzi
One of my favorite techno songs starts with this phrase: “You don’t realize you’re in the
moment until it’s a memory.”
Those words hit me differently now than they did 20 years ago. Back then, I was just trying to make a difference at the Interaction Design Institute Ivrea, trying to build something meaningful with my students, trying to solve the immediate problem in front of me. I had no idea I was living through the moments that would end up creating a global open-source movement. I always had a passion for reading biographies, especially of people in my field. I always felt it was so important to understand how they invented things. This also helped to see them like human beings, with flaws and issues.
