Remembering David Lerner
Thursday, November 27th, 2025I got the sad news yesterday that David Lerner has passed. I think I first met him at NYMUG in the early 90s, even before he started Tekserve. I still remember the permathread on the NYMUG BBS that inspired him to start a small shop specializing in component level repairs on compact Macs that official shops didn’t do at the time. It’s been a while, but I think something called a flyback transformer was involved.
A little later he printed and distributed some FAQ lists I was posting on Usenet. In exchange, he kept my SE/30 running for about 5 years when I was in grad school and couldn’t afford a new computer. And of course like everyone else with a Mac in New York, I brought him all the repair work I or anyone I knew had. Tekserve was also a reliable source for accessories and Macs before the Apple Store or even online shopping was a thing.
Tekserve was the sort of personal small business we don’t see a lot of any more. It wasn’t always the cheapest, but the prices were fair and the service was reliable. Every time I brought in yet another broken Mac and pulled a ticket out of the ticket machine, I knew that if it could be fixed they would fix it. They were completely competent and absolutely trustworthy, and that sort of attitude came straight from David. Everyone who used them loved them.
For the Mac community in the dark years of the 1990s, Tekserve wasn’t just a breath of fresh air. It was oxygen. Other retailers at the time, all fortunately now defunct, would have made used car salesman embarrassed. If you were a retail customer, buying or worse yet getting repairs done on a Mac was like navigating the US medical billing system. Once Tekserve opened, there was finally a friendly place you could go with your problem or purchase, have a honest chat with someone who knew what they were talking about, and get the thing you actually needed instead of the product with the biggest commission.
At the time a frequent question in the Mac groups on Usenet went like this: “My Mac needs to be repaired, and I’m in Los Angeles. Where can I go that’s like Tekserve?” The answer, unfortunately, was 23rd Street between 6th and 7th Avenue in Manhattan. There really was nowhere else like it. Even once Apple stores started popping up in suburban malls, it was still Tekserve smart New Yorkers trusted for repairs.
I was sorry when Tekserve closed in 2016, and even sorrier to hear that now David is gone too. The world is a little poorer place.
