Steve Ciarcia is an American embedded control‑systems engineer, author, and publisher. He gained prominence in the late 1970s and early 1980s through his “Ciarcia’s Circuit Cellar” column in BYTE magazine, where he presented detailed hardware projects and design articles for hobbyist and professional engineers.
Following the success of the column, Ciarcia founded the Circuit Cellar magazine, which continued to focus on practical electronics, microprocessor applications, and embedded‑system design. He has authored several books, most notably Build Your Own Z80 Computer (1981) and Take My Computer… Please! (1978), and compiled multiple volumes of his BYTE articles.
In the early 1980s, Ciarcia published a series of articles describing the MPX‑16, a 16‑bit single‑board computer compatible with the IBM PC architecture.
Ciarcia’s publishing activities expanded in 2009 when he entered a strategic cooperation with the European electronics magazine Elektor for the U.S. market. In 2012 he announced his departure from Circuit Cellar, after which Elektor assumed responsibility for the magazine. In 2014 Ciarcia reacquired Circuit Cellar along with related titles (audioXpress, Voice Coil, Loudspeaker Industry Sourcebook) and their associated online properties. He subsequently sold the publishing business to long‑time employee KC Prescott’s KCK Media Corp. in July 2016.
Through his columns, books, and magazines, Ciarcia has been influential in making microcomputer and embedded‑system design accessible to a broad audience of engineers and hobbyists.
