All About Apple Museum, founded in 2002, is currently the most comprehensive museum in the world containing nearly all the production of Apple’s personal computers, peripherals, accessories, prototypes from the dawn of 1976 to the present day.
The exhibited machines tell us the birth, evolution, transformation of personal computing – invented by Apple, with the peculiarity that here the visitor can use all the up and running computers: this is the only case in the whole world to have a museum like this one.
Museum’s catalog contains more than 7000 pieces, including 987 personal computers and 142 non-apple-apple (they are the pre MS-DOS machines: Commodore, Atari, Olivetti … to receive a better explanation of the pioneering era of the ’70s ), 244 monitors, 152 printers, 1330 minor peripheral (keyboard, mouse, floppy drives, hard drives, accessories …), 1706 manual, 1108 brochures, 144 posters, 951 software titles on CD-ROMs and floppy disks, 227 packages, over 200 pins and many accessories. A heritage, whose only limit is the space we are allowed to use.
In 2002, thank to the discovery of a considerable treasure of Apple computers belonging to a warehouse of Briano Computer company from Savona (SV), Alessio Ferraro – originator, current president and one of the founders of the museum – got this as a present from the new manager, (Pierangelo Fazio), who gave it in total to use for free.
After a shocking emotional reaction (it was the first embryo of a priceless heritage, the birth of personal computers in 1976 to the present day), Ferraro decided, in collaboration and immediate commitment to the project of his friend William Ghisolfo, not to assign this material to ‘personal use and private collections, but, taking an old idea of William, to set up a AMUG (Apple Macintosh user Group, Apple user group spread around the world) and convert it into a public museum.
Since the beginning of 2002, working hard – day and night – Alessio and William, in secret, prepared an opening surprise involving friends share their same passion for computers, the former owner (Ettore Briano) and the new owner (Pierangelo Fazio) of ‘Briano Multimedia’ in Savona, who made the first donation, inaugurating the first private site of the museum, by the house of Alessio Ferraro’s parents
From that moment on, we decided to give a criterion of formality to the idea of the museum, also to be able to get funds in a more transparent way and to encourage potencial donors to give any other computers with an ‘historical’ value, established an association with a constitutive act and a statute. The founders were: Paul Arrigucci, Marco Canavese, Alessio Ferraro, William Ghisolfo, Fabrizio Pesce e Bruno Zenoni.
In consequence of the constitution as an association and to the publication of our internet site, offerings and awards had an exponential growth, increasing tenfold the total balance of the Museum. The mayor of Quiliano, in the person of Nicholas Isetta enjoyed the initiative releasing a home for the museum to be used permanently. This site, a former carpenter in middle school ‘A Peterlin Quiliano (SV) and managed by the lecturer for over thirty years of technical applications Pierluigi Quassolo, was completely restored, following our will to have all the working machines exposed and manipulated by the visitor, the only case in a museum of this kind. Once completed, the museum was officially opened on 14th of May 2005.
Shortly after the opening an the extraordinary event took place, just unimaginable and unexpected: America Apple, Cupertino, California, called us and left a voicemail message. After a short time, we were delivered a handwritten letter signed by a senior marketing manager of Apple (Brett Murray), who complimented the opening of the museum (not advertised by us to Apple American, that was a total surprise), and invited us to join them in California for a visit to the Apple site and to be celebrated as the world’s largest Apple Museum. The recognition of the flagship had a hyperbolic effect of advertising, dozens of new machines were further donated to the museum, and several industry magazines and websites celebrated us in this magical moment.
In January 2006, a handful of brave guys (Alessio Ferraro, William Ghisolfo, Roberto Odino, Letizia Tomaselli, Emanuele Donetti, Marco Mioli) went at the Apple campus in Cupertino, California, and when we were back home from the States we also began to make some computer courses (basic and advanced), in collaboration with the University of Savona (Unisabazia). That same year, All About Apple was recognized an ONSUL non-profit association.
New forces joined the core of the original founders, such as Carlo Becchi, Paolo Bianchi, Bruno Corvi, Alberto Crosio, Danilo Olivieri, Roberto Odino (now Vice President), Alessandro Maggiolo, Andrea Palermo, Claudio Monchiero, Monica Brondi and other people who contribute to operate the daily mechanism of the museum, managing of the site, collecting and cataloging the received material, relationing with the public.
Important was the contribution of Andrew Palermo and Irene Murrau with their Thesis dedicated at All About Apple Museum, freely available online.
Today the museum is going to be transferred to a new headquarters, in collaboration with the Foundation De Mari, Quilianese exposure to the University Centre of Savona, in a new larger and more accessible space, easily reachable by everyone and attended by the forces of the new university students; in 2013 the museum will reopen to the public, and will continue its ‘mission’, with the organization of periodic days for the public (‘open day’), participating in exhibitions in various towns of Italy, making available all the material gathered in order to reach a greater numbers of visitors.
