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 DM0126C.DOC. It contains what looks like an e-mail reading session with e-mails dated in late January 1985. There are only a few e-mail in this file with a couple being about ‘PAN’ which sounds like it might be another Special Interest Group like Close Encounters, the content of which is featured in many of these files.
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DM0126B.DOC
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read 2
MAIL #2
From: AH 27-JAN-1985 00:41
To: CABUYS
Subj: shall i send u a long sexy letter?
shall i send u long sexy letter?
david here
tell me about you
what excites u
what makesy yr juices flow
kiss
david
MAIL>
IDEL>> leaving? sob!
re
To: AH
Subj: RE: shall i send u a long sexy letter?
Enter your message below. Press CTRL/Z when complete, CTRL/C to
quit:
I'd love a long sexy letter from you, David!
^Z
Press RETURN to return to reading your mail
MAIL> d
MAIL>
MAIL #2
From: PAN 27-JAN-1985 00:52
To: CABUYS
Subj: RE: some suggestions
here-here! I fully agree!
And yes, pls forward me a copy of your conf. protocols at your
earleisisetest
convenience.
Thanks!
* Perry *
MAIL> d
MAIL>
MAIL #2
From: PAN 27-JAN-1985 00:53
To: CABUYS
Subj: RE: Backstage Pass
Connie;
Your backstage pass is now enabled.
Please let me know what you think after you've browsed through
the Backstage area of PAN.
Cheers!!
* P *
MAIL>
IDEL>>
IDEL>> how you doing, anyway?
re
To: PAN
Subj: RE: Backstage Pass
Enter your message below. Press CTRL/Z when complete, CTRL/C to
quit:
Thanks! I'll be back in touch soon as I browse thru it.
-Connie
^Z
Press RETURN to return to reading your mail
MAIL> d
MAIL> dir
^R
/s idel
