I concur with the stories from the other DEC folks and certainly remember Jan Scherpenhuizen and S12N.
Some idea of a lower date for common use of I18N are books that talk about internationalization but do not use the abbreviation. It is not used in the July 1993 X/Open Internationalisation Guide nor the summer 93 Digital Technical Journal on Product Internationalization. Nor do I see it in the 1991 'Digital Guide to Developing International Software'. This was based on an internally distributed DEC manual - I believe that I have a copy at home. These dates tie in with the findings from Tex. I suspect that the term was in internal use, but not considered as fit for publication. The term internationalization itself is not used in my earliest reference, proceedings from an internal DEC conference on International Opportunities and Differences' April 1985. Tim
