{"id":36140,"date":"2025-11-01T11:22:47","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T15:22:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=36140"},"modified":"2025-11-30T13:29:51","modified_gmt":"2025-11-30T18:29:51","slug":"digital-archaeology-floppy-disk-14-prot-doc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2025\/11\/01\/digital-archaeology-floppy-disk-14-prot-doc\/","title":{"rendered":"Digital Archaeology: Floppy Disk #14 \u2013 PROT.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

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

This post includes the contents of PROT.DOC. This is a set of rules to be followed to participate in a conference or group chat that occurred every Saturday on Delphi in the Friendship Circle Special Interest Group (SIG). I guess there would be a specific topic each week and, based on the description here, it seems like it would be pretty heavily moderated. This message includes all the commands you can use during the conference.<\/p>\n


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


\n—<\/center><\/p>\n
.lt\n 10  24-NOV  CONFERENCE PROTOCOLS\n\n\nThe FRIENDSHIP Circle holds weekly conferences each Saturday\nnight starting at 9:15 PM EST on a variety of subjects.\nConference schedules are posted well in advance as are the\nprotocols to be observed during the conference.\n\nExisting protocols for the Saturday Conferences:\n\n?          to signal the moderator that you have a comment or\nquestion you would like a chance to voice.\n\nga         means you are done with your talk.\n\n:::msg:::  you are either unavailable temporarily, or just\nreturning.  There is no need to announce your arrival or\ndeparture into the conference area as the Delphi conference\nprogram does that for you. You could use this, however, if you\nwant others to know that you will return shortly or something\nof that nature.\n\n      The conference moderator has acknowledged your ? or\n!. (Please be patient.)  Also, you will be called in turn to\nthe best of the moderator's ability to keep track.\n\n!          Use this when you have a pressing but brief comment\nor question for the current speaker.  The speaker has the\nfirst option to allow the interrupt.  If this is abused, it\nwill be treated like a '?'. It's  purpose is to get immediate\nand relevant comments which can otherwise get lost in a long\nline.\n\nATN     should be self explanatory.\n\nOften you will find that these protocols are not strictly\nfollowed because of the \"mood\" of the evening.  Do not be\nalarmed or upset if you suddenly see a lot of comments and\nthen have the conference moderator (JohnMyself) call for ATN!\nWe do try to follow the protocols as outlined in fairness to\nall, but being human, we do get carried away at times!\n\nAs a matter of common courtesy, please keep side comments and\n\/send messages to a minimum.  Thank you.\n.el\n<\/msg><\/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":36141,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2913,2042,2362,2914],"class_list":["post-36140","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":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36140","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=36140"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36140\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36285,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36140\/revisions\/36285"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36141"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36140"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36140"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36140"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}