{"id":37031,"date":"2026-06-08T21:57:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-09T01:57:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=37031"},"modified":"2026-06-08T21:57:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-09T01:57:17","slug":"digital-archaeology-floppy-disk-14-computer-doc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2026\/06\/08\/digital-archaeology-floppy-disk-14-computer-doc\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Archaeology: Floppy Disk #14 \u2013 COMPUTER.DOC"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A summary for those that haven’t been keeping up with this series:<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Based on the contents, most or all of these disks were apparently once owned by someone named Connie who used to run the \u201cClose Encounters\u201d Special Interest Group (SIG) on Delphi in the mid 1980s.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/p>\n

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This post includes the contents of COMPUTER.DOC. This file is dated September 2nd, 1985 and is in a subdirectory called TELEPSYC. This is an article on types of computer addiction (“ego syntonic” and “ego dystonic”). No name or other credit is listed in the file. I tried doing a web search on a few strings from this article but couldn’t find anything so I’m not sure who wrote it. Based on the name of the subdirectory and the mention near the end of the file itself, I believe this article came from a special interest group or some other kind of feature on Delphi called “TelePsych”.<\/p>\n


\n=-=
\nCOMPUTER.DOC
\n=-=<\/center>\"\"<\/p>\n


\n—<\/center><\/p>\n
        COMPUTER ADDICTION\n\nIt is useful to distinguish between \"ego syntonic\" and \"ego\ndystonic\" computer addiction.  These are useful psychological\nterms to add to your vocabulary anyway.  Ego syntonic computer\naddiction means you don't honestly think you have a problem\nbut other important people in your life do think so.  Ego\ndystonic computer addiction means that you really feel you\nhave a problem but you don't feel you are able to stop.  This\ndistinction can be usefully applied to quite a variety of\nhuman problems such as drinking, philandering, even violence\nand aggression.\n\nEgo Syntonic Computer Addiction: \nIn this case you just like hacking but you have been advised,\nperhaps angrily, either that you are wrecking your life,\ngreatly disappoining someone else, or both.  Start with a\nbrutally honest self assessment.  Think hard about the\nfollowing questions, and write down your answers to each one:\n\n1.  Do you have a history of finding gadgets and games more\ninteresting than people?\n\n2.  Do you prefer solitary activities to ones that involve\ninteraction with human beings?\n\n3.  Are you highly compulsive?  That is, do you often have an\noverwhelming need to work on some project in spite of commmon\nsense?\n\n4.  Are you using computer activities to escape from painful\nproblems?\n\nIf the answer to all four of these is a definite \"No\"\n(assuming you have some measure of accurate self awareness),\nchances are your habits and preferences happen to clash with\nthose of some of the important people in your life.  Just to\nmake sure, why don't you try asking some people whose opinions\nyou respect to answer these questions about you.\n\nIf you answer yes to one or more of these questions you need\nto do some hard thinking.  These tendencies are not\nnecessarily indication of a serious psychological disturbance,\nbut they have risks.  A lifetime of withdrawal from human\nrelationships can lead to severe and intractable loneliness \nand despair.  Withdrawal can be self perpetuating.  As people\nskills decline from lack of practice, human relationships\nbecome more and more difficult and there is more and more\nimpetus to keep withdrawing.  If you have some of these\ntendencies but you do not feel you really have a severe\nproblem you must set some goals regarding how much time and\nenergy you want to make available to the important people in\nyour life as well as to your non-computer responsibilities.  \nIt might help if you asked someone to help you monitor this\ncommittment and remind you if you deviate from it.  If you\nfeel you have these tendencies to a more severe degree you\nshould seek professional consultation.\n\nEgo Dystonic Computer Addiction:\nYou know you hack too much, but you feel you can't stop.  This\nis probably similar to a gambling addiction.  Hacking is a\nprocess of prolonged concentration and frequent frustration\nthat rewards at unpredictable intervals, promising but never\nquite delivering great satisfactions (just like gambling). \nThis can be an insidious but powerful set of circumstances. \nIt gets even more compelling if you are depressed or escaping\nfrom painful problems.  There are no simple answers, but try\nthese out:\n\n1.  Take a computer vacation. Unplug the equipment and take it\nto a friend's house for two weeks.\n\n2.  Schedule a couple of computer-free days every week.\n\n3.  Keep a journal of your feelings and private thoughts. \nWhen you \"get the urge\" to hack, you may really be avoiding\ndealing with them.  Try facing them directly as possible by\nwriting them down.  It probably won't be as painful as you\nexpected.\n\n4.  Expand your repertoire of pleasurable activities.  Make a\nlist of non computer activities that might give you pleasure\nand commit yourself to spending time on these instead of\nhacking.\n\nIn either case, don't hesitate to seek help either from a\nmental health professional in your community or from TelePsych\nif you feel you are losing the battle.  Self help has its\nlimitations.  The price of delaying could get pretty high.  \n<\/pre>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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 \u201cClose Encounters\u201d 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37032,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2913,2042,2362,2914],"class_list":["post-37031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-computer-arcana","tag-delphi","tag-digital-archaeology","tag-retrocomputing","tag-telecommunications"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37031","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37031"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37033,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37031\/revisions\/37033"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}