I found a number of 5.25″ disks at a thrift store a number of years ago (we are talking late 1990s probably). I finally got around to acquiring a 5.25″ disk drive and extracting the contents a several years back. Since then, I have been occasionally posting the content here.
Based on the contents, at least some of these disks were apparently once owned by someone named Connie who used to run the “Close Encounters” Special Interest Group (SIG) on Delphi in the mid 1980s.
A description of this SIG was found in a document on one of the disks: “This SIG, known as ‘Close Encounters’, is a forum for the discussion of relationships that develop via computer services like the Source, CompuServe, and Delphi. Our primary emphasis is on the sexual aspects of those relationships.”
This service was text based and was accessed via whatever terminal program you used on your computer to dial in to Delphi’s servers. Many of these disks have forum messages, e-mails and chat session logs. All of this is pre-internet stuff and I don’t know if there are any archives in existence today of what was on Delphi in the 1980s. In any case, much of this stuff would have been private at the time and probably wouldn’t be in such archives even if they existed.
This post includes the contents of DM0123B.DOC. This file is dated September 2nd, 1985. It consists of a couple of e-mails from the same individual. While most of this Delphi stuff has been related to a Special Interest Group called ‘Close Encounters’, these e-mails seem to be in reference to another group called ‘Friendship Circle’. The e-mails themselves are dated January 23rd and January 24th, 1985.
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DM0123B.DOC
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MAIL #1
From: SGOLDMAN 23-JAN-1985 23:57
To: CABUYS
Subj: HOWDY
Hi! Would like to join friendship circle; I've been in similar
groups on the PLA
ning in from
all across the country. Fora chat, a
mon-thru-thurs nite around 10pm wuld ve good
(wait, next week im in denver, so thats12mid nytime)
maybebest for you to offer a few times
in advance, and ill let you know what i
canmatch. thanks, im looking forward to
pparticipating...take care
MAIL> f
Filename: dm0123
MAIL> d
MAIL>
MAIL #1
From: SGOLDMAN 24-JAN-1985 00:22
To: CABUYS
Subj: hello again
Well, it's a sammall world on this machine, it seems.
I talked with you briefly earlier thistonite,
then lokok
then looked at FSHIP circle for membership! To top it off,
i was in JAX Sun & Mon for the big chilll! Coiuld have done the
membership interview by
phone even! I'm using a model 100 now---
any hints on using it with delphi. I'm? I'm
getting a garbled upload, but when i read
it back, say in mail, it is fine. Any suggestions? Hope you're
staying warm...
MAIL> f
Filename: dm0123
MAIL> d
MAIL>
