Creative Digital Systems – PDA Developers East ’95 (Press Release)

On April 1, 1995, Creative Digital, Inc., the San Francisco publisher of PDA Developers magazine, issued a press release announcing PDA Developers East '95, a technical conference for developers building products for personal digital assistants.¹ The release framed the event as an intensive program covering the most popular hand-held platforms and their development environments, third-party PDA development tools, the practicalities of succeeding as a PDA software developer, and emerging wireless technologies and the service providers seeking development partners.²

The heart of the conference was a set of four-hour tutorials, each divided into an introductory section for developers unfamiliar with a platform and an advanced section for those already working in it.³ The press release announced tutorials on developing for the Newton, Palm, GeoWorks, and General Magic platforms.⁴ The conference program issued closer to the event listed the tutorial tracks as Newton, Psion, GEOS, and General Magic software development, presented in most cases by technical educators from the platform companies themselves.⁵

PDA Developers East '95 was co-sponsored by Geoworks, Inc.⁶ Its confirmed keynote speakers were David Elder, president of Palm, Inc.; Gordon Mayer, president and chief executive officer of Geoworks, Inc.; and Jean Belanger, chief executive officer of Metrowerks, Inc.⁷ An evening Tools Showcase gave third-party tool providers a series of short, focused presentations and closed with a raffle of donated hardware and software for attendees.⁸

The conference was scheduled for August 6 and 7, 1995, in Framingham, Massachusetts, immediately preceding the Boston MacWorld Expo.⁹ It was held at the Sheraton Tara Hotel, where the organizers arranged discounted single rooms starting at $89 a night.¹⁰ Registration started at $325 for both days, including breakfast and lunch, for those who registered before June 1 and rose in later tiers to as much as $450 — a difference the program promoted as a saving of up to $125 for early registration.¹¹ Creative Digital posted further agenda and registration details to online services including CompuServe, America Online, eWorld, and AppleLink.¹²

AI generated using primary sources referenced in the footnotes