TIPS FOR A BEGINNER SWAPPER (C) 2000 Grunge/SmasH ------------------------------------------------------- Do not believe those who say that time for program exchange (sWapping) by received the mail - this statement is true only for a few - the bourgeoisie with their fast and cheap internet, and also maybe be, for residents of two capitals of Russia, where providers are not so greedy thanks to con- smoking. The rest of the mass is spectrumis- Comv does not have access to any expensive internet no, not even to freebie Fido. However, receive/send software via Fi- doNet is a very stupid option, because, no- no matter what, in Fido you are still for- hang from often several dozen sysops through which your mail passes ta. Naturally, among them one encounters - there are such bores who limit the size of the programs being transferred, or even kill them completely. SWapping is enough business thankless and boring (though all this is with it pays off when you run to the post office for a parcel from somewhere in Novosibirsk ska, almost from anotherend of the world ;), however, this is a matter of first importance. If you decided to create your own in your city team, be sure to decide which of you will take over the responsibilities of sWapper - you need a responsible, neat and not a lazy person, because in many ways he advances your team's performance on stage will depend on network from him - don’t forget what exactly thanks to a competent attitude towards your the swapper's case, the team can quickly "resolve" spin" - use it to spread tracking your releases and establishing connections. If you feel like the last Nim from the Mohicans" in your locality - those, then you should as quickly as possible start correspondence with other cities, soon about the lack of software on Spec (or Amiga :) you will forget forever. So who should you text first? Probably, you shouldn’t immediately write the most super-exuberant elite people from the stage. In the beginning you need to gain a little experience so as not to freeze the words in the letter to Arty some nonsense in the style of: “How about you in RPSG join?" :-). It is advisable to choose guided by your intuition "golden middle", i.e. a group with experience, but still not untwisted enough to settle down sing, turn your nose up to the sky and answer letters only from the same arrogant people as they are ;-) By the way, be more modest, though first of alltime, limit yourself only the most necessary information about your group (usually a short list people and their hard) if you haven’t done anything yet managed to release it - believe me, it’s enough It’s definitely boring to read, how many the best coders, the most talented musicians and the most original designers are you on the team. Also try to avoid reap painting of several sheets with the inscriptions "RS - Must Die", "Vasya Soft Rulez" etc. Be more original, write on business, but by no means a couple lines - your letter should be at least one and a half pages, otherwise some will not will consider it necessary to answer you. Yes, if want 100 percent confidence in the answer? please enclose an envelope with a return address or a little money. Well, by the way, if you have really ugly handwriting - Find someone you know who has a printer. I know one- a great Amizhnik, with whom it is simply impossible but to correspond in order to at least somehow to understand the meaning of his letter, I wanted to tries to reread it three times (writes it's in Russian, not English ;-). First, you can call them, then you will understand exactly how predisposed they are laid to establish new relationships on stage, although usually all stagers, despite on the coolest texts in intros and demos they only dreamto call them. Yes now, it doesn’t matter whether you call or sit down write a letter after introducing be careful (you shouldn’t limit yourself to a phrase like “Hello, I’m Petya,” explain what you’re from city, what group you represent, and who are you anyway on the Spectrum (Amiga) - same- hacker, coder, musician, or artist ;). Say you saw their phone (address) in such and such a program that it di- I liked it to such an extent that you decided to contact the authors personally, this option works like a charm - people on the other end of the line, naturally, wildly It's nice to hear that someone likes it what they do, so the conversation next you should go. Although personally, for example, I prefer get acquainted over the phone only in that case tea, when you are not sure whether this team, or has already blamed it on some pEcE. It's expensive, you know, to call after all long-distance, because conversations are usually protracted hang out for half an hour. (By the way, don’t forget- those that the telephone exchange rips off you extra money - don’t believe it in any case - those stories that the countdown is on every second. No! For example, in Sevastopol The automatic telephone exchange counts 2 minutes each, i.e. even if we'll just call Kharkov Mah'u IWamoto, and his wife will say that he is gone home, then during this half-minute conversation with usabout 44 kopecks will already be ripped off (Khokhlyatsky :)! Data regarding cost per minute conversations are outdated. From the first of December to city introduces per-minute payment for transportation thieves, so apparently the countdown is two-minute chickpeas too, but perhaps in your locality point, the countdown proceeds exactly this way. So I would advise everyone to call the thread is still not from home, but to take a walk to the telegraph office or automatic telephone exchange. Well, another one like this a sign for beginners - if you start talking - passed, and you were disconnected ("disconnected"), know, you've already been chatting for half an hour. Automatic telephone exchange automatically cuts off international calls city every half hour. By the way, It is natural that in nature there is a non-natural There are many ways to deceive vile telephone companies. tov, thereby resulting in the possibility of the so-called “free inter- cities." However, information about such events Nowadays it is customary not to disclose, because after this the freebies quickly stop. The safest the worst method known to the author was tested by my friend in St. Petersburg - he called me in Sevastopol and we talked on the ball takes about 40 minutes. The point of the trick was as follows: blowing: as you know, on long-distance negotiation points have such a feature, like a special button on a telephonedevice, by clicking on which it starts - time countdown. You can call or not pressing it, however, the microphone is in the handset will be turned off, i.e. you will hear Iwamota, but he doesn’t hear you. At the same time the counter is not working. So it turned out what if without pressing the button you shout at tube into the same hole where you were killed- Iwamota's sweet voice screws up, then you'll be- children can be heard. So the people are wild pervertedly managed to communicate for a long time phone. Unfortunately, telecom workers after all, we saw eccentrics offering conversation, the receiver is now to the ear, then to the mouth, and bought everything. But check it out, maybe This option will work in your city. Of course, in addition to the letter, you will have to send send something else from the software. For the first Once again you can limit yourself to one disk. You shouldn't write anything to a floppy disk. well-known, for example the demo "RefresH" or Amiga "TecHnological DeatH" - such cool things go away in an instant, therefore we can assume that your she already has future pen pals. It is preferable to write down something that was made in your city or region (it doesn’t matter whether you, your friends; two a year or three ago - usually sceners are decide what is cool or not to determine moment in time), but due to the fact that no one is before youperformed feats and was lazy sWappi`, these creations local aborigines, so nowhere further They didn’t hit the radio market. How to Well, among such things, 99 percent - rubbish, but otherwise you can find something very valuable and useful - for example, in one of your local releases, from a certain Vasya Turbo Me- ga Dream Soft, with twitching scroll will be present, considered without- the lost 128th piece of music for Ka- some Sinclair toy. If you correspond with real stagers, they will really appreciate it, they will understand that you There are many more similar things that can be pulled out. Yes, by the way, you need to make sure in the normal alignment of your drive, otherwise no one will read your floppy disk. Yes and in general, if you seriously decide to swap - Xia, get two good five-inch disk drives and at least one three- inch. When you change no longer with one city, and parcels will arrive drink several times a week, with one the disk drive will be really difficult for you, when copying floppy disks they won’t even save you 512 kilobytes of RAM. Recently, we have there is a very slow tendency to re- Spectrumists' move to three-inch disco water, so sooner or later you will but you will have to fork out andfor such a thing up to After drafting the letter and recording the dis- Cats, don’t forget about going to the post office. By I know myself a stupid habit of procrastination sending written letters “for later”, to As a result, some of them remain Xia unsent... Take it as a rule seal and pack parcels, ban- deroli and registered letters at home - so you you can save about 20 cents on each - in Ukraine, for example, they charge for pack of 70 kopecks. True, independent but you also need to pack the shipments with mind at the post office there are standards, so es- Are you not an expert in these matters, proconsul- check with your auntie at the post office, as usual Pack the parcel properly. Or if you are so shy, carefully pro- watch her actions when sending your my first parcel - you'll lose it once 20 cents, but you'll gain experience. In ka- quality of paper in which you will pack you can send your parcels, you can use some old considerable paper, in which my mother was once wrapped in her chic new boots, or ordinary Whatman paper, to for example, from some old drawings from school. Naturally, the clean side the sheet should face outward. The previous paragraph has partially lost its meaning relevance,since recently nor, at least in Sevastopol, valuable letters and parcels are accepted openly form with a list of attachments, and parcels only to open form and, if desired, sent body with a list of attachments. Packaging is not large parcels or parcels, disks for about twenty, it will cost 50 kopecks. By the way, if you haven’t been to mail, please note that it has changed order of writing postal addresses - those- first name, patronymic, surname comes first (name of enterprise, organization, institution), then street, house number, apartment, locality, district, ob- lust. Sender coordinate locations and the addressee has also changed - the sender written in the upper left corner. Natural but why write all this rubbish? a pen, preferably a ballpoint pen, so that when carrying In some cases it didn't blur :-). On Ukraine also recently changed its indices, You can find out your new postal code at the post office, there it is usually written on a large sign in letters. Don't skimp on announcing your parcel is valuable. Rate it at least hryvnia This will already strengthen control over her upon delivery, non-valued items until - get lost quite often. Usually for assessment take 10percent of its value - almost nothing. Have you ever seen a chicken Are trains carrying parcels running? Hehe, somehow I was lucky enough to contemplate this miracle - it seemed that you could easily approach carriage and "steal" one of the randomly parcels dumped there. I think that for valuable parcels are looked after at the post office better... But despite all this, we never We evaluate our shipments and so far there have been no chance that the parcel does not reach the address - yeah, so decide for yourself. You can benefit from the shipping price by giving the fact that any shipments can be sent like a parcel. Those. despite the weight mail you can ask the postman to send send a package with 2-3 discs as a parcel. EU- if you come across a nasty lady, then everything will be o.k. - you will save a lot how many cents, because shipping rates parcels are significantly lower. By the way, pop- unique people are given who manage to forward 2-3 floppy disks in regular letter envelopes - believe me, the winnings are very big, but it’s risky, as usual lol, such letters weigh much more ordinary ones, and they do not reach the addressee. Although, as MigHty told me, he has it turned out that it would be necessary to send 2-3 disks even cheaper if you arrange the shipment asregistered letter. In this case you don't will have to tire yourself with humiliating pro- procedure for filling out the form, which is simple obligatory in the case of a parcel. But when sending a large quantity disks, the package still remains the most profitable option. If you decide to send money to to some friend for the purpose of buying new Vya, you can send them as postal water If you are a rich Pinocchio, you Of course, you can use this method yourself - in this case you will be charged 10 percent of the transfer amount, which, in basically quite a lot. In the case Is it critical for you in the current situation? but the time it takes for the money to reach you is our enterprising comrade, then sent away bark telegraphic transfer, so, really, will be even more expensive :-). Method number two: fool the postmen by stashing money in the depths of the parcel. In no case from- edit them in writing! True, the postman As we know, they are not so fools, besides, whoever you want sometimes - people can get "smoky" here, so be careful more original - why, for example, use act in the old-fashioned way - hide the loot in some brochures? Get scared of your a book - a matter of three seconds. We, for example, We always do this: we take old unnecessary disks that you can’t format anymore, we put about 5 of them in the parcel, and in one of them is investing money. About that in which one of them will be the money, you can You can arrange in advance, or write to letter - you can get out of this yourself, chief - It is clear that no postman will change shake each of these disks. Natural- It is clear that it is desirable to evaluate such a premise. thread before departure. We all live in fun times now - The Union, as you know, collapsed, that’s all became independent, well, everyone now matures a friend of a friend in espionage, theft state secrets - precisely with such a bo- the guy you will encounter when you get married drink not only within your own country. In this case, if you come to the post office with floppy disks and ask the postwoman to write chat the parcel, you will be sent away, because on these very floppy disks they can store all sorts of spy things that you Would you like to convey to Borka Yeltsin and Co., for them to carry out their imperial plans to capture your independent land. What to do in this case? Come to mail already with a sealed parcel, with address scribbled on it, etc., cry- those that, they say, didn’t know what was needed Bring open links.When asked about answer with the contents of the parcel what is there books for your little brother. You can even put one or two (on top and bottom) zu) so that the discs cannot be felt. Please note that it is prohibited to send not only disks, but also compacts, magnetic background and video cassettes. If you will it is necessary to send the parcel to the so-called the so-called "far abroad", try do the same thing, but I it is not known how this can be done take it for a ride - after all, according to rumors, everything is sent niya, even letters at customs are opened and are reviewed for content materials that threaten your safety Motherland. However, there is an irrefutable fact - at one time the leader of RUSH - Imp - swapped - Exactly by mail with Reaction, who live in Poland. Departures to neighboring countries format as registered letters. Everyone It won't do any good to pretend to be a fool. There is another way to swap - train yes. If you live in a big city, what a cut that goes through many paths, Consider yourself lucky. So, for example ru, the well-known Joker/Mafia in Kharkov literally swapped with the entire CIS. Parcels are ferried through conductors - on - they go for such things willingly, because, according to essentially, forthey get such a freebie more than their official salary. The method is excellent - the parcels arrive quickly, but it will cost more, than at the post office: the conductors take it somewhere dollar per transfer, plus additional costs for long distance calls, don't forget you must tell those receiving the parcel but dimensions of the carriage and the name of the conductor with whom you are the whole thing was sent. How reliable is it? this method? It probably all depends on conductor. Here you will have to half- rely only on your intuition. I'll just say that our Hidden Riot so regularly half- longs for Amigas from Lvov, and somehow I too had to send 100 tanks with the conductor owls (he didn’t know about money - I said that there were floppy disks in the box, the money was for- printed in one of them) so that the next day to meet the one transmitted in the same way image of Amiga from Kyiv. Well, the very last piece of advice - don’t give in take the most lame habit among Swapers - don’t hesitate to answer. Sta- Please try to send your answers within a few minutes. model period, otherwise your reputation may be spoiled, as happened with to our MigHty, who were lazy to answer in Lis- Sichansk for several months.
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