1986 - Version 1

Menu of the first version of Epi Info?, implemented as a DOS batch file.


A 27-page manual was added in February 1986 and the “Programs for Automatic File Definition, Data Entry, and Tabulation“were now called Epi Info?. Distribution was informal; anyone who wanted the programs was given a photocopy of the manual and a 5 1/4 inch floppy diskette.

The first field trial of Epi Info? and its companion “artificial intelligence“system, Epiaid, was conducted in the investigation of a syphilis epidemic in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, by Dr. Consuelo Beck-Sagué, then an EIS Officer.

The idea of high-level computer assistance in planning an investigation never caught on, and the technology of the time did not make the Epiaid programs easy to use. Epi Info?, with its practical tools for constructing questionnaires and entering and analyzing data, became ever more popular over the next few years.