I am looking for a Tach for a friend and he has DIS ignition. Every shop tells him he needs an adaptor that costs like 50 some bucks. Is this normal or is there a way around it?

There is a way around it. Most DIS have a tach output on the coil pack. you will need to get a wiring diagram to find out which wire it is.

Most tach manufacturer's have parts that you can buy to adapt their product on to many types of ignitions, including the DIS. If they don't, generally it's not a good tach in the first place. I know thought that Autometer, Ractive and Apexi all have adapters for every type of ignition.
If worst comes to worst, the ignition manufacturer will most likely have information on how to wire up a tach to the ignition module.

Most of VDO's tachs have either mulitple input terminals for different ignition signals or "dip" switches that you can set to read a variety of engine types. Some tachs even use an inductive field (like the osciliscope at a smog test) and don't need a signal wire.