When Borland came out with Delphi 1 in 1995, a new world opened up to Pascal programmers--Windows programming was now easily within their reach. Sure, there had been Borland Pascal 8 for Windows, but not too many people wanted to tackle the OWL (Object Windows Library) with all its C-like complexity and steep learning curve. With Delphi, many of the necessary details of Windows programming were hidden in "wrappers" or components that could be simply chosen from a palette and dropped on a form.

Soon, books and magazines started teaching Delphi programming and in Portland, Oregon, like many areas around the country (indeed, around the world!), developers wanted to get together and talk about this new programming environment, to strengthen their skills, learn new techniques, and build professional relationships. So, sometime in 1995 or 1996, a few of these people got together and started meeting on a monthly basis in Legacy Emanuel Hospital's Lorenzen Center Auditorium.

There was no one really "in charge" at first, just a group getting together and talking about Delphi. But the meeting room definitely had a stage and we wanted someone up front! Soon Greg Postlewait stepped forward to lead. Greg's professionalism and ability to bring good topics and speakers to the meetings, grew attendance rapidly. We setup an email list at eGroups--which has now been merged into Yahoo! Groups. Since we were able to get the meeting room for no charge and the mailing list was free, we have never charged for admission or annual dues.

After four years, Greg moved out of the area and handed the reins over to David Cornelius, who is the group's coordinator to this day.

At some point along the way, a web site had been established, but since there was no budget, it moved a couple of times depending on who would host it for free. In late 2000, David Cornelius arranged with John Kaster of Borland to host the group's web site on Borland's "Homepages" server. After several years, the server started showing its age and with the separation of the Developer Tools Group from Borland into Embarcadero's CodeGear division, it didn't even really fit there any more. So in early 2009, the domain name odug.org was established and a new web site was built. It is currently hosted by David Cornelius.

The group almost closed down in 2010 when David took an out-of-state job and made plans to move. But a year later, after working remotly and traveling a lot, he decided to stay in the Portland area. No one else had come forward to take the reigns, so he resumed the leadership role.

We meet almost every month as interest demands, and still try to stick to the "third Monday" as we have since the beginning. Our meeting location has changed a few times, but we have landed a good place on the south side of the Portland metro area that promises to be our new permanent location. (However, each meeting announcement specifies the location for that meeting.)

The meetings are free and open to the public. Feel free to join the low-volume mailing list to be notified of meetings and participate in developer discussions. We look forward to meeting new people and sharing programming experiences!