Wow, I hadn't read one of these in a little bit, what a great post out of this one. I swear in 1985, the people here in these situations, God I want a documentary on them. I'm pretty sure they went on to create Fet Life or some shit. Either way, such a great look at that time period and the mindset of people communicating in a way the general public just doesn't even really grasp yet.
I need to hit up some vintage shops and find some floppys and three by fives. Then I need to build an old computer to view the files lol.
It really was such a small segment of the population that knew how to communicate this way. I didn't really get "online" until the early 1990s. However, it was still before ISP connections were common. I called local BBSes as opposed to using services like Compuserve or Delphi. Only a few years later, most local BBSes were dead or dying and the internet was exploding.
I haven't found a decent stash of old computer stuff in years. These days its either considered garbage and thrown out or "collectible".
Really, you just need a computer old enough to have a floppy controller on the motherboard. I'm currently using an Athlon XP generation computer for reading floppies though I think controllers were included on motherboards for a while after that. The floppy drives themselves can be found on places like eBay pretty easily. You can get more creative and buy or build a usb interface but that is more expense or more work in my opinion.
I sadly/embarrassingly believe I have both a floppy and 3.5 drive somewhere around that I could fangle a way to connect to a newer machine.
I went back through reading the post again and noticed Connie dox'd herself. Man, a search of two later, If I found it right, she is 70 years old now. You should mail her these floppies so she can read her old love letters lol.
Yeah, I think I found them on facebook a while ago. They were married and had kids (or at least one) that was grown... So I guess it was a happily ever after.