A summary for those that haven’t been keeping up with this series:
I found a number of 5.25″ disks at a thrift store a number of years ago (sometime in the late 1990s to the best of my recollection). 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, most or all 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.
The following 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 a modem and whatever terminal program you had available for your computer to dial in with. Many of these disks have forum messages, e-mails and chat session logs. All of this is pre-internet stuff and I am not aware of any archives in existence today that contain what was on Delphi in the 1980s.
This post includes the contents of JWG.DOC. It contains a single e-mail dated January 27th, 1985. It’s from somebody with the handle of JOHNWG (presumably JWG are his initials). It refers to a prior conversation and seems to be about promoting the Close Encounters Special Interest Group. I have no idea if any of the items mentioned here ever came to fruition.
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JWG.DOC
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From: JOHNWG 27-JAN-1985 15:04 To: CABUYS Subj: It was good talking to you again. Connie, It was really great talking to you again. I am looking forward in working with you to make your sig a nationally known enity. I would like you to consider all avenues of approach for marketing your sig and the possiblities of you expanding it. I know that Sex is more than just a past time experience and I know that there are several millions to be made by it. I just want it to be done in good taste and I feel comfortable that you and john can do it. I will be open to a national dating service, a mag. clearing house of sorts etc. I want to work with you in exploring all possible avenues and I will do whatever is necessary to make it THE BEST ! Thanks for your time, Talk to you later. John
