15-V-1989.

My first fair day. We soved several computers (including one big 386, courtesy of Taho's company), a printer, couple of those weird kneeling chairs, and a box of paper into the Yugo (I think we still didn't have two then, that was maybe next year) and went early to Belgrade to set up our booth. We got easy access to the west entrance, and only had to carry everything to the upper floor. And then at ten, when the gates opened, we had a flood of visitors.

Turned out we were the only ones who had price lists. It was wise to bring a printer, because we needed it a lot. At some point, we got worried that we may go thin with the ink in the ribbon, or run out of paper.

Lots of kids were carrying floppies with them, trying to get any warez they could put their hands on, and mostly spread viruses. Vienna-b was the most popular one - and we already had a cure for it, plus the McAffee's scan 2.0 or thereabouts. We took care to scan every floppy before allowing the kids to search for anything, and caught many of them with viruses.

At times it was impossible to drop a needle - we'd have several raiding parties present at the same time (about half of them became customers in the following months), and all of our shirts were stuck to our backs. The ventilation wasn't turned on (probably didn't work for years), and the only reprieve we got was the hasty lunch at "6 poplars". We ended the day dead tired, and repeated it the next day.

We took shifts. I kind of remember that it was Grgi and me hauling the boxes upstairs the first day, and that I was there for two out of three days (or three out of five?).

DBA made its first big step.


Mentions: Atila Gereg (Grgi), DBA, Tanasije Rijepić (Taho), in serbian