I founded Arachne while still at school with two school friends (Jim Cameron and Mark Vevers - we'd previously created much of a network filing system for Archimedes and BBC Micros together). I'd written some chemistry-related software (a precursor to Arachne Molecular Modeller) and wished to look like an official company in order to obtain support from Acorn Computers. Arachne's early history can be found elsewhere. Computers had long since been a hobby of mine, so it was great fun making some money from them too.
To be continued...