Early DISD history that I recall:
April, 1988 - Comdex Atlanta Four companies sponsored a common booth at this trade show: Medflex, DataModes, (Andy Kaplan’s company), and one other company. The group formed DISD to join together in the marketing of DataFlex application system.
November, 1988 - DISD Education Committe Meeting.
The committe met at Knot’s Berry Farm in Los Angeles. Steve Kramer from All System Go was chairman. The major decision was to learn object oriented programming together as a group. James Parker volunteered the use of his facility in Carson City, especially the Dojo for its cost-saving possibilities. Those who wanted to keep cost to a minimum could sleep on the Dojo’s padded floor.
February, 1989 - First DISD Technical sponsored by the DISD Education Committe.
A guy named Alex was commissioned as the technical expert to prepare sample applications and lead the meeting. 7-10 common applications were selected to code in the new DataFlex object-oriented language. A lively discussion evolved with these attendees present:
Kaye Caldwell (DISD president), James Parker, John Tuohy, Jerry Busick, Bob Millard, Chris Morgan, Coby Sparks, Paul Bartos.(I think), and several others.
Steve Kramer was noticeably absent. Kaye brought homemade peanut butter and jam sandwichs to save money, but then stayed in a motel.
Jerry Busick
Group:
I think we started trying to teach each other object oriented in about 1990. If that is so, it may make the first DISD around 1988. I think early attendance was around seven to nine.
There was a woman who wrote a newsletter. The last name "Crandall" pops to mind, but I give that recovered memory about a ’2’ on the apocryphal* memory scale.
Jerry Busick surely must have been there. Surely someone from Texas. In the first two or three we succeeded in having some surprisingly powerful arguments. My memory is the arguments drew much of their strength from our ignorance, which was considerable.
I think some of the arguments revolved around who should qualify for DISD membership. Vendors as members?
James L. Parker
* apocryphal: a questionable story of dubious origin and doubtful veracity. In other words, most of computer science.
At that first meeting I remember trying to make small talk in a circle of developers - mentioned that I had downloaded some really great code samples from the bulletin board, and that someday i hoped to meet this ’J Tuohy guy’ because he was doing some really good work. A few in the circle started to laugh and James Parker steps forward and introduces the guy standing next to me! Yep, it was John...
I remember that the technical expert (Alex) was clearly upset with the crowd because half of them (us) didn’t know what a double linked list was. During a break he stood out on the sidewalk in front of Parkers office and berated everyone, because they were not real programmers, certainly not people he could respect!
