Before the design and fabrication of integrated circuits became computer-aided, operators used to hand-cut rubylith to create masks for the separate layers. This ongoing project researches the field of digital and media archaeology, and this initial step is an attempt to understand obsolete microchips by ‘reversing’ their design back to their original, physical format.

 

This project additionally calls for the attention to the physical labor involved in technology manufacturing, then and now. The human aspect of making, in an industry so austere about efficiency and maximization, is all too overseen and overlooked. Here, the substrate and diffusion layer designs of the MOS Technology 6502 were laboriously hand-cut onto rubylith - an old-school screenprinting method that has also fallen into disuse.