Tekserve’s Treasure Trove of Vintage Macs
Tekserve had a true Genius Bar of technicians long
before the rise of Apple Stores. The store was started
by Dick Demenus and David Lerner in 1987 and
became the go-to repair shop for early Mac fans in
New York City because of its fast, affordable service.
It grew to be the largest independent Apple reseller
and service provider in the United States and, at
its peak, had as many as 1,000 customers a day.
A customer visiting Tekserve for a repair would
grab a number that would be displayed on 1980s-era
Mac when it was their turn. The legendary shop even
made an appearance on an episode of
Sex and the
City
, when columnist Carrie Bradshaw (played by Sarah
Jessica Parker) sought help for a crashed Powerbook.
As Apple raced to replace each machine with a
better, more powerful Apple product, Tekserve gave the
obsolete devices a place of honor in a glass case. Over
time, this became a collection of rare vintage Macs. It
included an Apple monitor signed by Steve Wozniak as
well as an Apple Lisa, a NeXTcube, and other seminal
machines in Apple’s history.
In July 2016, facing rising rents and competing
with six Apple Stores in the city, Tekserve closed its
doors after 30 years in the business.
“Now you can buy a Mac almost anywhere, like
the Best Buy on the corner,” Demenus told the Daily
Beast
around the time the store shut down. “Apple does
a good job with servicing now, and computers have
become more like appliances, and more reliable and
cheaper. There’s less demand for our service. If a com-
puter fails after three years, now you think, ‘Maybe it’s
time to get a new one.’”
For the store’s most devoted fans, the closing of
Tekserve didn’t just mean no longer seeing the friendly
faces that rescued hard drives and extended the life of
an aging computer. These devotees would also lose what
amounted to a tech museum.
Along with old Macs, Tekserve’s shelves were
loaded with the gadgets that preceded computers,
including vintage radios, televisions, rotary telephones,
microphones, record players — even medical equipment
from the late 19th century.
The 35 Apple computers housed at Tekserve could
be considered the first ever Apple museum, but with
Tekserve’s closing, the classic Macs may never be seen
again. The store’s contents were scheduled for auction,
with the Macs up for bid at an opening price of $30,000.
“I’ve been collecting for what seems like forever,”
Demenus said. “The apartment is full, so there was no place
for this to go, and I don’t want it to go into storage. I want
to share it with the world. Let it have a life elsewhere.” The
gavel came down when bidding reached $47,000, and the
collection was sold to an anonymous buyer.
Tekserve’s Collection Travels to the Ukraine
Ukraine is a hotbed of Apple-centric software companies,
and it turned out that the anonymous buyer was Oleksandr
Kosovan, who founded the Ukraine-based software com-
pany MacPaw when he was just 22 years old. He purchased
the Tekserve collection after announcing the opening of a
private, in-office museum at MacPaw’s headquarters.
Kosovan dubbed his company MacPaw to pay
homage to Apple’s old custom of naming its operating
systems after big cats, such as Tiger, Leopard, and Lion.
MacPaw became successful thanks to its development
of software like CleanMyMac, Gemini, and Setapp.
MacPaw’s Museum
As a teen, Kosovan got hooked on Apple when he laid
eyes on a wireless key body for which he paid an entire
month’s salary. “Apple changed my life in many ways,”
Kosovan said. “Driven by Steve Jobs’s vision for better
and simpler products, I was able to implement these
ideas in our products’ development. I cannot thank
Apple enough other than [by] paying this great tribute
to the history of iconic Apple products by setting up a
museum.”
The Tekserve collection now has a new home at
MacPaw’s museum, where it gets a daily dose of love.
The artifacts rest on glass shelves that are patrolled by a
white shop cat that gingerly steps around the machines
and occasionally rubs her face against a monitor. The
cat (pictured at the top of page 100) is one of two feline
mascots at the software company.
MacPaw’s museum houses 70 pieces, including the
items from Tekserve. There are "Think Different" posters,
swag bags from past Apple Worldwide Developers
Conferences, and every generation of iPhone, which
Kosovan’s staff surprised him with as a birthday present
before he announced the opening of the museum.
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