MLN started in 1999.

Back then “mobile computing” meant a laptop that weighed three kilos, ran for ninety minutes on a good day, and cost about as much as a used Corolla. We sold them anyway, because the idea was right even when the hardware plainly wasn’t.

Somewhere between 2010 and 2012 it worked rather better than anyone expected. At its peak MLN accounted for around 14% of every notebook computer sold in Australia. Not 14% of a segment, or of a price bracket — of the lot. For a Melbourne outfit that began with one shop and a strong opinion about batteries, that still looks faintly ridiculous written down.

We are an authorised service centre for a long list of global brands, Venom Computers among them. Machines come back to us under warranty, out of warranty, dropped down stairs, drowned in coffee, or simply old and slow and worth saving. A shop that only sells never finds out whether it sold the right thing. A shop with a service bench finds out constantly, usually at volume.

We still sell, too — laptops, desktop computers and custom-built machines for people who know exactly what they want, and for a few who only think they do. We are also an official Venom Computers retailer, which means the BlackBooks written about here are machines we actually sell and actually service.

The people here have been doing this a long time. Long enough to remember when a spinning hard drive was a selling point, when “ultraportable” was code for a worse keyboard, and when every second new machine arrived carrying a trial antivirus that did more damage than the viruses ever managed.

MLN UNBOXED is where the opinions go. It carries on as an homage to mobile computing — and whatever that happens to mean this year, because it changes about every eighteen months and nobody sends a memo.