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DECUS is an independent association of users of Hewlett-Packard and HP Partners. The membership association, registered in Munich, Germany, acts as part of the worldwide Association of Hewlett-Packard User Groups in Germany and Austria. DECUS has some 7,500 members, mostly system, network, and applications specialists as well as IT Managers.

Association activities: The HP User Society DECUS München e.V. promotes the exchange of information and know-how between its members, manufacturers and partners. The association supports its members in the representation of their interests against HP and partners, helps in problem solving and facilitates formation of opinion and advanced training by organizing events.

History:

DECUS was the Digital Equipment Computer User Society, a users' group for Digital Equipment Corporation computers. Members included companies and organisations who purchased DEC equipment; most members were application programmers who wrote code for DEC machines or system programmers who managed DEC systems. DECUS was founded in 1961.

DECUS was legally a part of the Digital Equipment Corporation and subsidized by it, but it was run by volunteers. DEC staff were not eligible to join DECUS, but were allowed (and encouraged) to participate in DECUS activities. DEC in turn relied on DECUS as an important channel of communication with its customers.

The DECUS U.S. Chapter conducted technical conferences at various locations, and ran other operations like Local User Groups (LUGs) and Special Interest Groups. Chapters in other nations did likewise. DECUS also promoted the open exchange of user-developed software, largely via magnetic tape.

DECUS played a critical role in the development of computer games in North America in the 1970s. The pioneering titles Adventure by Will Crowther; Baseball, Dungeon and Star Trek by Don Daglow and Hunt the Wumpus by Gregory Yob provided a foundation for the games industry. Major commercial game titles including Zork were first popularized by DECUS.

The PLATO system performed the same function on CDC computers during the decade.

In 1998, Compaq acquired Digital, and DECUS became a Compaq user group.

In 2000, the DECUS U.S. Chapter incorporated as the independent user group Encompass.

In 2002, Hewlett-Packard acquired Compaq, and DECUS became a HP User Society.

• HP-Interex EMEA
• HP User Society DECUS München e.V.
• Encompass U.S.