Anybody who know us is probably aware of how important Apple computers have been in our lives. We had the first Macintosh 128 in December 1984, and had it upgraded to a 512k, then to a Mac Plus, then went through the later models, had the Mac 2, the 2fx, the SE30 and SE and LC. We didn't bother with a Quadra or the first models of the Powerbooks, but came back in when the G3s and iMacs were made. I still have the oldest Mac Portable in the UK, brought over to UK from New York in Concorde on the day of its US launch in 1989.
I ran MacTel BBS for 14 years, having taken it on from Paul Beaumont (when he went to University) and then it sort of stayed with us till 1999. We had the two MacSeptembers in 1987 and 1989 (with David Thomas), and had a magazine called Clipboard, based on the musings of MacTel. The BBS itself ran through several models of computer, starting with the original Mac, then a Dell PC, then back to Macs (using a Performa with a high pile of CD drives and hard disks, and a stack of modems.)
Then we started dealing in second hand macs, buying them from a company in East London who redistributed machines for Apple Commercial Credit, and this grew to an authorised dealership, Exmicro, selling new computers.
Ironically, it was the arrival of Steve back to Apple in 1996 that was the beginning of the end for us, as he toughened up the retail outlets, and small dealers disappeared - but the product line improved so vastly, that much of what he now has been credited with - the iMac, iPod, iPhone and iPad all came after this date. Thinking back to when the Lisa and Mac came out, few remember what a tedious thing MSDOS and the IBM PC was, and going back further to 1976 (or was it 1977) few remember that when the Apple 2 came out, computers were commonly the size of wardrobes or freezers, and needed more space than that for the air conditioning.
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