<<<>>>¢ (A letter to RON from one of our new¢ members, OCTAVIAN GRECU in Bucharest¢ Romania, recently receivd. Thanks¢ OCTAVIAN for sharing your world with¢ us!)¢ **¢ Greetings to the whole OL' HACKERS¢ USER GROUP!!!¢¢ Dear Ron,¢¢ Thank you very much for sending¢ me the 12 disks of programs, and¢ doubly so for making me a member of¢ OL' HACKERS ATARI USER GROUP. I hope¢ you don't mind too much, but I'm¢ really not that old. I'm sorry if my¢ postcard misled you in any way, but¢ it was simpler to tell things that¢ way than to go into all the details¢ (there wasn't room on the postcard).¢ I really hope you will let me remain¢ a member of your club!!¢¢ I'm a 24 year old electronics¢ student here at our local university,¢ nearing the end of my next to last¢ year of study. My father was the one¢ who actually purchased my ATARI 130XE¢ w/1050 US-DOUBLER disk drive in '89¢ while he was on a short trip in the¢ U.S. I obtained your address from one¢ of the very few issues of ANTIC he¢ purchased during that period. I¢ learned my English at Public School¢ 116 in N.Y. City,where I attended for¢ my 5th and 6th grades. At that time¢ I had the excellent luck to accompany¢ my father while he was posted to the¢ U.N.in New York City during¢ 1981-1983, but I haven't left the¢ country since. In '83 a law was¢ passed making it impossible for any-¢ body working or living in foreign¢ countries to take their children with¢ them (not even newborn babies!). When¢ I first came to New York I had no¢ knowledge of English at all, and I've¢ tried since to stop forgeting what I¢ learned by reading a lot of books¢ from the local American and British¢ Libraries (although there was a¢ period when it was considered highly¢ suspicious for anyone to associate¢ with any foreigners).¢¢ What else can I tell you about¢ my day to day life, here in Romania?¢ A big problem is the low quality of¢ public utilities services (did I get¢ that right?). Practically every time¢ the outside temperature drops below¢ -10c (14F) the cooking gas pressure¢ drops so low you couldn't boil an egg¢ inthe flame and tap water gets turned¢ off at night from 11pm to 5am.¢ Hot water puts in an even rarer¢ appearance, usually in the morning¢ and late evening (never at the same¢ hour). This causes temperatures in¢ our apartment to frequently drop¢ below 14c,(57F) as it is supposedly¢ centrally 'heated' with non existent¢ hot water.¢¢ Since the Revolution that took¢ place here in December '89 resulting¢ in the overthrow of the Ceausescu¢ dictatorship, my country has, like¢ most other Eastern European¢ countries, embarked in a plan to¢ restructure the economy into a market¢ driven one. There is now an abundance¢ of western goods to be found in the¢ many small shops that have sprung up¢ practically overnight throughout the¢ city. The only problem is that, due¢ to inflation, only people engaging in¢ black market activities can afford¢ most of them. As the government¢ relinquised all control over prices,¢ the 'market economy' concept seems to¢ be interpreted (by most merchants) as¢ meaning "get the highest price you¢ can for your product - no matter what¢ its quality". The concept of¢ competition driving prices down,¢ while highly publicised, has yet to¢ be put into practice (if at least¢ prices were stationary, but they¢ double every few months).¢¢ In the past (before '89), it was¢ highly risky to correspond with any¢ foreigner, and all mail out of and¢ into the country was routinely¢ opened. They don't do this anymore¢ for letters, but they do open any¢ large package (in front of the¢ recipient) to impose import duties on¢ it. And it seems that everything is¢ taxable! There is a tax-free limit of¢ 5000 Lei, but these days that is¢ worth nothing (a 5 1/4 floppy disk is¢ valued at over 1000). I was very¢ fortunate that they didn't ask me for¢ any duties for your package. It¢ does'nt seem to matter what you¢ actually paid for something (I¢ sometimes manage to obtain free¢ samples of IC's), because there is a¢ catalog according to which they¢ estimate the prices (the latest¢ discovery is estimating the value of¢ an integrated circuit according to¢ its number of pins). The inport¢ duties are 20% for electronic¢ products, plus 18% V.A.T. on the¢ total of estimated price + import¢ duties (totalling about 42%). ¢¢ The fact that the government¢ liberalised the exchange rate of Lei¢ to foreign currency has had an¢ extremely detrimental effect on the¢ average citizen's buying power. The¢ exchange rate has gone through the¢ roof (it is now officially over 2000¢ Lei to a $). The prices seem to be¢ based not on manufacturing costs, but¢ on the exchange rate, causing the¢ average family (mine included) which¢ earns around 150-200,000 Lei a month¢ to try very hard to make ends meet.¢ Our economy has also been hit very¢ hard by first the Gulf War, and now¢ the war in the former Yougoslavia.¢ Iraq was a large trade partener of my¢ country. And the former Yougoslav¢ republics, by their very nature of¢ being neighbouring contries, are very¢ important to our economy.¢ Unfortunately, the fact that Romania¢ (and other countries in the region¢ such as Bulgaria) is strictly¢ respecting the U.N. embargo against¢ its best interests is being ignored¢ by the interrnational community, and¢ no compensation (of any sort) will be¢ forthcoming.¢¢ About other equipment I own:¢ just a Commodore CM-141 color¢ monitor. Would you happen to know¢ anybody willing to send a XEROX copy¢ of the service manual for this¢ monitor, as it is starting to show¢ its age? I wish I had a printer, but¢ with prices being what they are this¢ is not likely to happen. A friend of¢ mine was recently trying to purchase¢ a 9-pin printer for his job, so he¢ phoned every firm in the equivalent¢ of the Yellow Pages specializing in¢ computer equipment, and the lowest¢ price he found was $800!!! But, I can¢ tell you that trying to programm¢ while only having a screenful of¢ program at your disposal at any one¢ time is an ordeal (and reading docs¢ with a text editor stinks). Anyway,¢ more important to my future career¢ would be an IBM compatible computer,¢ since most good engineering software¢ was written for this computer. But,¢ prices being what they are (an IBM¢ '386sx type with modest capabilities¢ costs well over 3 million Lei - as a¢ comparison, in '89 a new car was¢ 75,000 and a new apartment with 4¢ rooms was 200,000).¢¢ As for owning a word processor,¢ I'm afraid that I only have TextPro,¢ which satifies my needs for the time¢ being since I have no printer.¢ On this disk you will find some¢ programs that I hope you will enjoy¢ written by a friend (pen-pal) who¢ lives in Prague that I very recently¢ met last month. His favorite¢ operating system for Ataris is¢ SPARTADOS 3.2d (as is mine, besides¢ MyDos 4.5), so most of his programs¢ were made to run under that system.¢ Some are quite excellent, as I'm¢ sure you will notice! All of them¢ are public domain (I noticed that you¢ already have some of them in your¢ disk library). The third disk¢ is from Austria, where a young¢ computer science student wrote a¢ program for IBM PCs to make them read¢ MyDos formatted disks (using it is¢ the only way I managed to print out¢ the MyDos documentation at our¢ faculty). As he told me he didn't¢ have the similar program for reading¢ SpartaDos disks that you have in your¢ library (#224), that will be one of¢ my choices for the disks you so¢ graciously offered to send. Two other¢ choices would be disk #242 (for¢ TEXTPRO 5.0, as I'm writting this on¢ version 4.0M which doesn't work¢ perfectly with Sparta) if it has the¢ docs for Textpro, otherwise send disk¢ #227, and disk #266 for UUE.ARC (I¢ hope that soon I will be able to send¢ and receive E-MAIL on the Internet¢ using the only computer connected to¢ this service in the whole faculty, so¢ I will need this). As for the rest of¢ the disks, I will have to think about¢ what to choose (there are so many I¢ find interesting!).¢¢ I noticed that in your library¢ is a disk for ANALOG #60 (disk #51).¢ I want to point out that the¢ DETOKEN.BAS program has some bugs in¢ it that prevent it from operating¢ properly (at least the one I have -¢ the only issue of ANALOG with disk I¢ own - does), so I included a fixed¢ version of the program on this disk¢ so you can replace it if you wish.¢ Also, while reading the docs for the¢ Turbo Basic Compiler (for which I¢ thank you once again) I noticed a¢ small inaccuracy: it is possible to¢ save a compiled file to a disk other¢ than #1 by entering the drive number¢ before beginning to type the file¢ name.¢¢ In case you are wondering how¢ come I happened to send you this¢ mailer from New York City, I asked my¢ father to contact a colleague of his¢ that works there so he could drop¢ this in the mailbox. The stamps are¢ mine (re-cycled from old letters sent¢ from the U.S.), as is the mailer and¢ the disks (both obtained by¢ requesting demo software). I hope you¢ won't think I'm cheap, but mailing¢ you these disks from here in Romania,¢ besides being very risky and taking a¢ long time is also rather expensive.¢¢ I wish you lots of happiness,¢ and a long life to O.H.A.U.G.!¢¢ Sincerely,¢ Octavian¢¢ Please excuse my lack of style¢ in writting (my sentences tend to¢ become unbearably long), and be kind¢ enough to attribute my probably¢ numerous spelling errors to typos. ¢ ¢ (Ed. Please note that RON FETZER, out¢ of the kindness of his generous heart¢ sent OCTAVIAN the requested disks as¢ well as th 12 disks mentioned in the¢ beginning of this letter. RON proves¢ that OL' HACKERS do their utmost to¢ spread the 8 BIT word. Thanks RON you¢ are a winner!)¢ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>END<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<¢¢
