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You are here: Home / About Waterlooville / Whatever happened to GB Microland?

Whatever happened to GB Microland?

Wednesday 22nd March 2017 by Steve Mayne

Cast your mind back to the 1980’s, and EmilY’s Nails in Waterlooville Precinct was GB Microland, purveyor of 8-bit silicon goodness of many flavours (and colours).

Most of my monthly pocket money went on saving up for and purchasing ZX Spectrum cassette tape games. Games purchased here include Durrell’s Jungle Trouble and US Gold’s abysmal Zaxxon conversion. Other purchases include a leaf-switch Kempston Joystick (I could only dream of owning the micro-switch version) and the ubiquitous QuickShot helicopter style controller.

The owners of the shop were Stewart and Bob, and were always up for a chat, unless they were having a bad day in which case they’d empty the shop and lock up for a bit of peace and quiet! I think it’s fair to say they were both larger than life characters.

GB Microland was the first place I’d seen and touched a Dragon32, an Oric 1, and Atari 800, but they weren’t a patch on my trusty rubber-keyed ZX Spectrum.

In the very early 1990’s I purchased an Amiga 500 (Batman Pack) from GB Microland. As a long term and frequent customer Stewart and Bob cut me a cracking deal with a discount off a 512MB expansion card (thank you chaps). I continued to return to the store to purchase Amiga games until I moved onto PC gaming.

No story about GB Microland is complete without mentioning The Baytree Bookshop’s computer section, but I am sorry to say that I don’t recall visiting it, possibly preferring the slickness of GB Microland’s layout with the large demo screens in the window and with banks and banks of computers ready to try.

Despite much searching, I am unable to find any photographs of GB Microland, there must be something out there somewhere?

Can anyone recall why GB Microland closed, and what happened to Stewart and Bob?

Brantano Waterlooville Closing Next Post »
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Comments

  1. Peter Jackson says

    Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 19:56

    Steve Jackson

  2. James Reed says

    Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 19:56

    I remember ross records from the 1990s.I’ve always been a console gamer.Lol.However i remember playing spectrum games in the late 80s.U know the man who ran focus sounds? He was on a episode of who wants to be a millionaire once.

    • About Waterlooville says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 20:56

      Yes I knew Steve, he sadly passed away a few years ago.

    • James Reed says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 20:56

      Very sad i remember all the people who worked in focus sounds,i was always buying videos there.

    • About Waterlooville says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 20:56

      I married one of them ……..

    • James Reed says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 20:56

      Did u? I don’t remember many of the women there.The Internet made focus sounds close down.

    • Terry Matthewson says

      Thursday 23rd March 2017 at 20:56

      I used to go in Focus all the time – they were so helpful and could find records/cd’s that you had trouble finding anywhere else. Sad news that Steve has passed away though

    • James Reed says

      Thursday 23rd March 2017 at 20:56

      How long had focus sounds been there for before it closed?

  3. Ryan Empson says

    Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 19:56

    Used to get my c64 tapes in microland!

    • About Waterlooville says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 19:56

      Have a soft spot for Little Computer People, Rambo & Beachhead.

    • About Waterlooville says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 19:56

      Or trying to kill the LCP by not feeding him ;) Played Beachhead the other week, it’s still awesome.

    • Ryan Empson says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 19:56

      Little computer people was amazing…. dancing to the record player was the funniest bit!

  4. Steve Jackson says

    Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 20:56

    I remember the woman that works there didn’t want to sell me “strip poker” for the c64 because I was too young, but back then there was no age ratings, sweet talked her into letting me buy it. Got home, had no idea how to play poker, found a friend who did and realised the pictures on the packaging were nothing like the block graphics that you actually saw! 😂 £9.99 wasted…

    • About Waterlooville says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 20:56

      I had the Spectrum version. I found it ‘reasonable’ :D

    • Steve Jackson says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 20:56

      Yea, if you squint! 😂

    • About Waterlooville says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 21:56

      Speccy had the wipe-clean keyboard 🤣🤣🤣 Perfect for such an application!

  5. Marc Chivers says

    Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 20:56

    Allan Francis. You worked their. Can you explain why they shut up shop 👍

  6. Steve Jackson says

    Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 20:56

    I also bought an Amiga 500 and a Cd32 (which I still have) from Microland GB.

    • About Waterlooville says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 21:56

      Good stuff, I gave my A500, 512 chip ram, and original box in mint condition + loads of games … away in the late 90s in a mass clear out. Do they still work? Turrican II for the win!

  7. Shaun Lockhart says

    Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 21:56

    Great memories of buying games for my Commodore 64 (better than the Spectrum as I often told you in our Computer Science A-level class 😎) and then the Amiga.

  8. Allan Francis says

    Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 21:56

    Wow this does bring back a lot of happy memories. I worked at GB Microland for over 8 years and they were 8 great years. Stuart and Bob treated me like their son more that an employee. Another employee was Glynn. We had some great times there had many regulars that came to buy and sometimes just have a chat.
    As time went on and the likes of PC World entered the world it became tougher and tougher to complete. Some people still shopped with us because of the level of service we gave. Unfortunately things got tough and they made the decision to retire and move down to Cornwall. They lived there for a few years before then moving abroad.

    • Marc Chivers says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 21:56

      👍👍

    • Glynn Downing says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 21:56

      I concur with Allan Francis. Absolutely the best years of my working life, still. Great bosses, great staff, great customers, great friends. That little shop was at the forefront of today’s boom, although we didn’t know it at the time. No internet, no mobiles. Just cassettes, disks and the Atari ST/Amiga/Spectrum/C64 battle. Glorious times and times I will treasure forever.

    • Samantha Dory Anscomb says

      Thursday 23rd March 2017 at 22:56

      Did either of you work with my brother Sean Crellin? He worked there for some time but I don’t know the dates.

    • Allan Francis says

      Thursday 23rd March 2017 at 22:57

      The name doesn’t ring any bells Samantha. I was there from 1989-1997

    • Samantha Dory Anscomb says

      Thursday 23rd March 2017 at 22:57

      Blonde haired lad. I’m sure it was in the 80’s.

    • Allan Francis says

      Thursday 23rd March 2017 at 22:57

      He may have been there before I started

    • Glynn Downing says

      Thursday 23rd March 2017 at 22:57

      I recall a lad, may or may not have been him. Not full time, just a weekend gig? He was funny. Liked Harry Enfield and Chums? Probably way off the mark.

  9. Jan Harrison says

    Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 22:56

    Great advertising for Emilys as well!!

    • About Waterlooville says

      Thursday 23rd March 2017 at 11:56

      I was going to take a look inside, but as middle-aged male I felt that perhaps I may get some funny looks …

  10. Luke Jones says

    Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 22:56

    Bought my spectrum light gun complete with 6 games including bullseye from microland. Was with a new school mate and 25 years on we’re still top mates… and to think he was only using me for a go on the light gun ;-) Jordan Cross

    • Jordan Cross says

      Wednesday 22nd March 2017 at 22:56

      Glory, glory days. It was the light gun AND listening to Justified Ancients of Mu Mu….it kept me ticking over until the Amiga turned up…

  11. Philip Talbot says

    Thursday 23rd March 2017 at 18:48

    I definitely remember Microland. I used to own an Amstrad CPC464 and bought loads of games on tape which I then had fun with putting them on disk instead. Once that challenge was over I didn’t really bother actually playing most of the games. Some of them had quite challenging copy protection! Then I got an Amiga 1000 from Baytree Bookshop but still brought my software from Microland. Remember Stuart and Bob, what memorable characters they were. Hate to think how many hours I spent in their shop talking to them and not buying stuff… LOL

  12. Phil Smith says

    Monday 17th April 2017 at 16:58

    I remember going in there in the 80’s and there was often a guy just inside playing a computer card game game and smoking cigarettes whilst playing a John Palmer record. It really was a gem of a store and I can appreciate how they became maginalised buy the bigger players. Let’s hope retirement was good for them.

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