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. I finally got around to acquiring a 5.25″ disk drive and extracting the contents a while back. Since then I have been posting the contents 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 specific definition 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 TEENS.DOC from October 25, 1985. It contains a poll about whether or not teens should be allowed in this particular group along with some comments from those voting in the poll. This appears to be a screen capture log of viewing and voting on the poll.
See the previous post here.
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TEENS.BAK
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res Which poll results do you want to see (type "?" for list)? tee TEENAGERS, created by WIL1. Creation date: OCT 25,1985 Do you all think that teenagers should be a part of this sig, or not? CHOICE VOTES PERCENT ------ ----- ------- STRONGLY AGREE 3 23% AGREE 0 0% UNCERTAIN 2 15% DISAGREE 5 38% STRONGLY DISAGREE 3 23% ----- TOTAL VOTE: 13 Comments: I think it is only fair, and anyway, don't you think they already know all of this in the sig from BEING a teenager? The basic theme of this sig precludes allowing those teens who are under 18. Also, this is consistant with most 'adult' things in life generally. It's hard to know how to vote when the question asks: Do you think so or not? S I think the teens definitely need a place of their own, however, I'm not sure this is the place. And NO, I don't think they already know everything just by BEING a teenager. I'm still learning myself! If they have the ability to get this far, It's time to stop telling them what NOT to do and focus on what they CAN do with common sense. It didn't do any good hiding Santa did it? I ASSUME THAT I AM "STRONGLY AGREEING" THAT ANYONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO HAVE ACCESSS I I CAN'T SEE HOW YOU'D POLICE IT! VOTE on this poll? (Y/N) y Do you all think that teenagers should be a part of this sig, or not? List of voting choices: 1 STRONGLY AGREE 2 AGREE 3 UNCERTAIN 4 DISAGREE 5 STRONGLY DISAGREE Vote for which choice? (? for list) 5 Comment on your vote: (Ctrl-Z to end) >The membership has voted not to allow teenages^H ^Hrs into the sig adn to k^H ^H^H$ as >a place for adults only. This will avoid a lot of hassles when we get into d >iscussions of a more personal or "questions^H ^Hable" nature. ^Z Your vote has been recorded. Thank you, CABUYS. POLL> res teens The poll name "TEENS" was not found. Try again. Which poll results do you want to see (type "?" for list)? tee TEENAGERS, created by WIL1. Creation date: OCT 25,1985 Do you all think that teenagers should be a part of this sig, or not? CHOICE VOTES PERCENT ------ ----- ------- STRONGLY AGREE 3 21% AGREE 0 0% UNCERTAIN 2 14% DISAGREE 5 35% STRONGLY DISAGREE 4 28% ----- TOTAL VOTE: 14 Comments: I think it is only fair, and anyway, don't you think they already know all of this in the sig from BEING a teenager? The basic theme of this sig precludes allowing those teens who are under 18. Also, this is consistant with most 'adult' things in life generally. It's hard to know how to vote when the question asks: Do you think so or not? S I think the teens definitely need a place of their own, however, I'm not sure this is the place. And NO, I don't think they already know everything just by BEING a teenager. I'm still learning myself! If they have the ability to get this far, It's time to stop telling them what NOT to do and focus on what they CAN do with common sense. It didn't do any good hiding Santa did it? I ASSUME THAT I AM "STRONGLY AGREEING" THAT ANYONE SHOULD BE ABLE TO HAVE ACCESSS I I CAN'T SEE HOW YOU'D POLICE IT! The membership has voted not to allow teenagers into the sig and to keep this as a place for adults only. This will avoid a lot of hassles when we get into discussions of a more personal or "questionable" nature.
