1993 – Atril develops Déjà Vu software, the first Windows-based Computer-Aided Translation Tool (CAT tool) on the market.
Yesterday I was clearing a closet where I kept some old stuff, and I found these:
A couple of original Déja Vu diskettes. They might even still be in good working order (that is if one had a computer with Windows 3.1 on it).
There is a date written in pen on them, from '95, when I must have checked those disks for integrity. But I know I had bought DV before moving to the States… must have been back in 1993, when I was working at Logos, in Italy, and that fits right at the beginning of Atril’s time line.
So, judging from the serial number (27) still clearly visible on them, I must have been one of the very first users of CAT tools for Windows. I didn't use Déja Vu for long: in 1994 I moved to the States to work in the translation department of J.D. Edwards, a software company. Shortly after I arrived the company adopted a translation memory program, but that was IBM's TM2 (later still, J.D. Edwards changed to Trados).
But I still remember the excellent technical support we received from Emilio Benito, the late founder of Atril.