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 OCT84.DOC. Similar to the last post in this series, this appears to be a report that gives details on the usage of the SIG (how many hours each user spent in the SIG, etc.). This is in the from of an e-mail from someone named KELLY who was presumably an employee of Delphi. The e-mail is dated November 5th, 1984.
There are two SIGs (Special Interest Groups) that have been mentioned repeatedly in these files. One is the “Close Encounters” SIG and the other is the “Friendship Circle” SIG though I’m not entirely sure they were different. “Close Encounters” may have evolved from “Friendship Circle”. In any case “Closed Circle” is mentioned in this report but maybe this is an alias or the name changed again at some point.
This report includes username, sessions (number of times the user called), prime minutes (typically online time during more expensive per minute charged time limit), and offprime minutes (typically online time during off peak hours that are “free” with your monthly subscription, or at least much cheaper).
This file is dated September 2nd, 1985 and was in a subdirectory titled “SIGUSAGE”.
=-=
OCT84.DOC
=-=
—
From: KELLY 5-NOV-1984 10:32
To: CABUYS
Subj: Usage Report
Usage report, by time, for Closed Circle Sig
============================================
PRIME OFFPRIME
USERNAME SESSIONS Minutes Minutes -------- -------- ------- -------- ACE 8 0 164
ADAMM 2 0 68
ALESSAN 1 0 5
AMANDA 3 0 12
ARGUS 1 0 3
ATLAS 3 0 53
BAT 1 12 0
BDRUZINSKY 2 0 17
BGS 16 0 275
BIALI1 2 20 10
BIRDMAN 4 0 82
BLT 5 0 19
BOBW 2 0 23
BOUCHIE 1 0 3
BUSSIGMGR 3 0 26
BZ 4 0 197
CABUYS 191 3 6830
CBS 7 0 69
CDSVP 1 0 3
CONDOR 1 0 7
DEIRDRE 1 0 40
DEOGBURN 5 3 3
DJR 18 0 246
DOUGLEVY 4 0 39
DOVERONE 1 0 3
DRJAZZ 1 0 14
EL 9 0 104
ELCAMINO 1 1 0
ELFAN 2 0 23
ELLIS 4 0 85
ELLISCO 1 0 74
ELT 1 0 18
ELWOOD 1 0 32
ESPRIT 1 0 1
FIL 1 0 23
FRIED 5 0 49
FTF 2 0 5
GFTJR 1 0 1
GUEST 1 0 8
HANSOLO 19 0 855
HEADHUNTER 1 0 2
HEARSTEPS 1 3 0
HELENH 3 76 6
IDEL 1 0 11
INTER 1 0 13
INVISIBLE 1 0 90
IOS 1 5 0
IVY 3 0 178
JCG 2 0 26
JFOLEY 1 0 3
JKOCH 1 0 20
JMIRANDA 1 0 1
JOHNMYSELF 39 0 836
JOHNP 7 0 67
JPELLINO 2 0 3
JPM 1 0 2
JS 11 37 213
JTR 1 0 43
JWRADAMS 1 0 3
KAPROTYRO 1 0 6
KENF 1 0 27
KLAATU 1 5 0
LANTERN 1 0 21
LSANTOS 1 0 4
MARTI 9 0 290
MAVEN 1 0 37
MIKE 2 0 63
MIKEPO 1 0 1
MRBCOMM 1 0 1
MRHAPPY 2 0 11
MROBINSON 1 0 1
NAGMAN 1 0 53
PHILO 1 5 0
PJHORST 1 8 0
PORSCHE 2 0 171
PRINCESS 59 9 2440
PSYCHOLOGY 1 0 18
QUICKRODNEY 27 5 251
RADIOTRAK 4 0 46
RDM 1 0 11
RM 2 0 25
ROGERFORTIN 1 0 8
RVLEWIS 4 0 158
SMILE 27 0 455
SPARKY 8 52 237
SPIKE 7 0 224
STARFIRE 1 0 16
STRGPLANNING 1 0 1
SUMMER 2 0 18
SURFERGIRL 1 0 2
SUZIE 1 0 19
SWM 1 0 8
T7001 1 0 12
THESTRANGER 13 30 308
THX 1 0 10
TREK 10 0 401
TROPICAL 11 0 120
TRSMAN 1 0 11
TSTANTON 5 0 192
UAP0M 1 0 1
VAMPYR 2 0 9
WERNER 1 0 2
WJ 1 0 1
WOMBLE 3 0 32
YOSHI 11 0 185
------------------------------------------------------------
Totals in Minutes 652 274 16913
4.57 281.88 hours
