{"id":35249,"date":"2025-03-25T00:06:15","date_gmt":"2025-03-25T04:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=35249"},"modified":"2025-03-25T00:06:17","modified_gmt":"2025-03-25T04:06:17","slug":"digital-archaeology-floppy-disk-14-dm0126b-doc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2025\/03\/25\/digital-archaeology-floppy-disk-14-dm0126b-doc\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Archaeology: Floppy Disk #14 \u2013 DM0126B.DOC"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/center>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 (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.<\/p>\n

Based on the contents, at least some 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

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.”<\/p>\n

This service was text based and was accessed via whatever terminal program you used on your computer to dial in to Delphi\u2019s servers. Many of these disks have forum messages, e-mails and chat session logs. All of this is pre-internet stuff and I don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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This post includes the contents of DM0126B.DOC. This file is dated September 2nd, 1985 and contains e-mail dated in January 1985. This seems to be a file capture of a mail reading session. Included are several e-mails regarding The Friendship Circle Special Interest Group and some related to SIG Operators. It also looks like the mail reading session was interrupted with a couple of direct messages. Many of the files from these disks have been related to a special interest group on Delphi called Close Encounters. However, this mail reading session as well as the previous one I posted contains e-mails related to another Special Interest Group called Friendship Circle. The e-mails read here are among the oldest of any I’ve found so far. Based on one of these e-mails, I don’t think Friendship Circle and Close Encounters were really separate SIGs but rather Friendship Circle became Close Encounters.<\/p>\n

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\nDM0126B.DOC
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\n\n                                                               \n     MAIL #3\n\nFrom:   CABUYS         26-JAN-1985 20:47  \n\nTo:     CABUYS\n\nSubj:   request from jsplear\n\n\n\nI can only assume that you wish to join the Friendship Circle\n\nSIG. \n\n\n\nYour message to me only included your an\b\bname.  I checked the\n\nPEOPLENET to see if you had a profile there and you didn't,\n\nso I must know your age to add you.  This is required becauase\n\nPRINCESS>> you ok? everything ok?\n\nthe main topic we discuss is sexu\b - with emphasis on the\n\nsexual aspects of telecommuncations via services like the\n\nSource, CompuServe and Dellphi\b\b\b\bphi.\n\nBCOLBERT would like to talk with you.\n\n\n\nAs soon as I ahve \b\b\b\b\bhave a\bheard from you as to your age, I will be\n\nmore than happy to sen dyou add\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\bd you additional information.\n\n\n\nThank you for your interest in The FriendShip Circle SIG.\n\n-CABUYS (Sig Manager)\nMAIL> ffor\b\b\bor\n\nUnrecognized command 'FFOR'\nMAIL> for\nTo: Armias\nSubj: The Friendship Circle SIG\nMAIL> d\nMAIL> \n\n                                                               \n     MAIL #3\n\nFrom:   CABUYS         27-JAN-1985 00:25  \n\nTo:     WES,JOHNWG,@SIGOPS\n\nSubj:   some suggestions\n\n\n\nI am sure I speak for all the SigOps in expressing my\n\nappreciation to Wes and JohnWG for a very informative\n\nconference.  I'm sure we are all looking forward to the\n\nchanges in the SIG program.\n\n\n\nWe all seem to realize that regular conferences with fellow\n\nBCOLBERT>> I'm still learning.\n\nSigOps and Delphi personnel are a must for a successful\n\npartnership.  However, if I may, I would like to make some\n\nsuggestions about these conferences.\n\n\n\nFirst, my SIG, The Friendship Circle, has held conferences on\n\nCIS for several years and has been holding them on Delphi\n\nsince last August.  We have a conference protocol that allows\n\neach person to have his say uninterrupted. Although this\n\nprotocol tends to slow things down a bit, you do have the\n\nfeeling of having accomplished something when a conference\n\nis over and the frustration of trying to have your say is\n\ngreatly diminished.\n\n\n\nSecond, all TFC conference topics are announced in advance,\n\nusing Dmail.  I would suggest that possible topics for\n\ndiscussion be sent to Chris and that he schedule conferences\n\nto discuss these particular topics.  This, in addition to\n\nthe conference protocol, will allow for a more organized\n\nmeeting and we will not all feel as tho we are jumping from\n\none thing to the other without resolving anything.\n\n\n\nGranted, since SigOp conferences are new, there is a lot to\n\ndiscuss, but we need to do it in an orderly manner.  Also I'd\n\nlike to suggest that we try to stick to a two-hour time limit\n\nfor conferences and have the conferences on the same night\n\nor same date as this will help enable many of us to work the\n\nconferences into our busy schedules.  (But please, please\n\ndon't have the conferences on Saturday nights!) \n\n\n\nAnother suggestion to make things flow smoothly would be to\n\nuse the \/send function to say your individual \"hellos\" and\n\n\"goodbyes\" when someone says he\/she is leaving.  This will\n\nallow the normal conference to continue uninterrupted.\n\n\n\nLet's all work together as a team to have the most successful\n\nSIGs around!\n\n\n\n                           -Connie, SigOp, The Friendship Circl\ne\n\n\n\nP.S.  If you would like to review the conference protocols I\n\nmentioned above, TFC Info article #10 is the place to look.\n\nOr you can send me a note via Dmail and I'll send you a copy.\n\nThanks.\nMAIL> d\nMAIL> \u001a^Z\n\n(Back to Conference)\nread 2\n\n                                                               \n     MAIL #2\n\nFrom:   UAP0M          24-JAN-1985 19:31  \n\nTo:     WES,DAN,CHUCKG,KIP,@SIGOPS\n\nSubj:   SIGOP Conference reminder.\n\n\n\n\n\nA quick reminder of the first monthly SIGOPs meeting this comin\ng s\bSaturday\n\n01\/26\/85 at 9:00 pm (ET) in group SIGOPS MEETING in DELPHI CONF\nERENCE.  The\n\npassord\b\b\bword is: SGIS   Hope you all can make it.\n\n\n\n  To JOIN a PASSWORD PROTECTED GROUP, do the following:\n\n\n\n1)  Enter the DELPHI CONFERENCE SYSTEM\n\n \n\n2)  issue the following command :  \/PASS  SGIS\n\n\n\n3)  Issue  ?\b\/JOIN  SIGOPS MEETING  or \/TALK  ,\b<3\b# assigned to grou\np>\n\n^Y\nMAIL> d\nMAIL> \n\n                                                               \n     MAIL #2\n\nFrom:   BCOLBERT       27-JAN-1985 00:30  \n\nTo:     CABUYS\n\nSubj:   RE: some suggestions\n\n\n\nTH\bhanks for the note. I was late as I was in the midst of workin\ng on a Telephone\n\ndirectory for the Deaf in Florida on the same computer.\n\n\n\nYour thoughts sound good to me. I missed your name, since I am \nnew as a SIGOP\n\nand didn't recognize it. \n\n\n\nHope JAX warms up a little. We are due to have a freeze here in\n Orlando, too.\n\n\n\nBye\n\n\n\nBob\nMAIL> \/\b\n\nUnrecognized command '\/'\nMAIL> re\n\nTo:     BCOLBERT\n\nSubj:  RE: some suggestions\n\nEnter your message below. Press CTRL\/Z when complete, CTRL\/C to\n quit:\nThanks for your\nAH>> hello\n support and comments regarding my suggestions.\n\nAnd best of luck with your SIG!!!\n-Connie\n\u001a^Z\n\n\nPress RETURN to return to reading your mail\n\nMAIL> d\nMAIL> \n\nNo more messages\nMAIL> dir\n\n                                                               \n             MAIL\n\n    # From                 Date         Subject\n\n \n\n    1 THESTRANGER          24-JAN-1985  Final Confrence\nMAIL> \n\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 (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 \u201cClose Encounters\u201d 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\u2019s servers. Many of these disks have forum messages, e-mails and chat session logs. All of this is pre-internet stuff and I don\u2019t know if there are any archives in existence […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":35250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[66,486,2913,2042,2362,2914],"class_list":["post-35249","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-computer-arcana","tag-66","tag-computers","tag-delphi","tag-digital-archaeology","tag-retrocomputing","tag-telecommunications"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35249","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35249"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35249\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35251,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35249\/revisions\/35251"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35249"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35249"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35249"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}