Boosting the Baud Rate ... Appendices
Boosting the Baud Rate:
E-mail and Connectivity in the Former Soviet Union
Appendices
1-IASNet X.25 Access Numbers
2-Sprint Nodes Rotary Numbers
4-Preliminary Needs Assessment Report for BALT*INFO Project 5-Using E-mail
in the Former Soviet Union and the Baltics
(A Guide for IREX Scholars)
6-Cyrillic Character Encoding Methods
NOTE: Appendix 3, Centers of New Information Technology (CNIT), has not
been included in this electronic version of this paper.
Appendix 1
IASNet X.25 Access Numbers
City Code Admin Sovam Support Modem number
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Moscow 095 229-1118 947-5586 932-6765
Baku 8922 66-3995 66-4689 66-0079
Kazan 8432 54-3200 74-3430 76-3688
76-3272
Kiev 044 296-4238 296-4247 296-4292
296-4283
Minsk 0172 26-4560 26-4560 20-7674
Riga 0132 55-1133 55-1133 36-3041
St. Petersburg 812 311-7129 311-8412 311-0365
Ufa 3472 22-5500 22-4827 52-8647
Vladivostok 4232 25-2731 25-2598 25-4633
25-3455
25-9711
Yerevan 8852 28-5082 28-2951 28-4230
II Quarter '93 anticipates adding Alma-Ata, Kaliningrad, Murmansk,
Novorossiysk, Novosibirsk, Petrozavodsk
Appendix 2
Sprint Nodes Rotary Numbers
July 14, 1993
=======================================================
Location Republic
Dial Access (rotary) HELP
DESK
(City) country/ Local Local
area code Number Number
=======================================================
Angarsk Russia
(218)^ 9-4821 6-6401
(7-39518)^^ 9-4821 6-6401
Barnaul Russia (7-3852) 26-1601 24-1545
Bratsk Russia (23) ^ 42-0620 42-6869
(7-3953)^^ 42-0620 42-6869
Chita Russia (7-30222) 6-8853 3-3410
Ekaterinburg Russia (7-3432) 51-9945 41-4368 Irkutsk Russia (7-3952)
33-6116 43-3496
!!!33-3464
Khabarovsk Russia (7-4212) 21-4937 21-8799 Komsomolsk
na Amure Russia (42172) * 3-6504 3-0249
Krasnoyarsk Russia (7-3912) 21-0529 21-9758 Moscow Russia (7-095) 928-0985
201-9285
Neftekamsk Russia (7-34713) 5-7301 5-6509 Nakhodka Russia (7-42366) 4-2710
4-4772
Novorossijsk Russia (7-86134) ** 9-1800 6-4380
** 9-1801
Novosibirsk Russia (7-3832) 29-8861 22-7006 Omsk Russia (7-3812) **25-4396
24-1226
**25-6506
Perm Russia (7-3422) 65-9636 48-8341
Rostov Russia (7-8632) 69-6911 34-4722
Samara Russia (7-8462) 33-0021 33-2690
South
Sakhalinsk Russia (7-42400) 2-9091 2-2399 S.Peterburg Russia (7-812)
110-7792 265-0571 Tomsk Russia (7-3822) 21-1556 26-6808
Tumen Russia (7-3452) 25-1910 26-8522
Ust-Ilimsk Russia (235)^ 5-7365 5-3918
(7-39535)^^ 5-7365 5-3918
Vladivostok Russia (7-4232) 22-3310 22-5750 Volgograd Russia (7-8442)
32-9965 32-8366
Ishimbaj Russia/
Bashkiria (7-34794) ** 3-3708 ! 52-9890
** 3-3654
Meleuz Russia/
Bashkiria (7-34764) ** 4-0008 ! 52-9890
2-0424
Neftekamsk Russia/
Bashkiria (7-34713) 5-7301 ! 52-9890
Oktyabrskij Russia/
Bashkiria (7-34767) ** 4-3831 ! 52-9890
Salavat Russia/
Bashkiria (7-34763) 2-4322 ! 52-9890
Sterlitamak Russia/
Bashkiria (7-34711) 5-5161 ! 52-9890
Ufa Russia/
Bashkiria (7-3472) 52-9410 52-9890
Yakutsk Russia/
Yakutia (7-41122) ** 6-2934 5-9345
** 5-9320
** 5-9377
Gomel Belorussia (7-0232) ***55-1342 55-1132
Tallinn Estonia (0142) **43-1519 42-1228
**43-1566
(7-3722)!!**43-1519 42-1228
**43-1566
Alma-Ata Kazakhstan (7-3272) 50-7000 63-8936
Riga Latvia (7-0132) 22-3817 22-5671
Kiev Ukraine (7-044) 245-0379 245-4642
Lugansk Ukraine (7-0642) 53-9010 55-1201
Odessa Ukraine (7-0482) 26-2801 21-6282
Tashkent Uzbekistan (7-3712) 49-0356 44-1952
=======================================================
Note:
^ These area codes will be used for connections from Irkutsk. ^^ These
area codes will be used for connections from all other
locations all over the world.
* This Rotary number is not accessible all over the world. ** These
individual numbers will be changed to Rotary Numbers. *** Gomel Node
temporary is not in operation for political
reasons.
! This HELP DESK local number is in Ufa, its area code is
(7-3472)
!! This are code will be used only for connections from abroad. !!! This
HELP DESK number will be used for Irkutsk Region
(Angarsk, Bratsk, Ust-Ilimsk, Chita)
Appendix 4
Preliminary Needs Assessment Report for BALT*INFO Project
submitted to the International Research & Exchanges Board (IREX) by: Eric
A. Johnson
Exchange & Gift Division
Library of Congress
Washington, DC 20540
eaj@seq1.loc.gov
TEXT (as of July 1993):
The rapid spread of Internet in the Baltic is being both helped and
hindered by Western assistance. While there are several organizations
providing the equipment and telecommunications which make Internet
networking in the Baltic possible, these assistance programs are not
coordinated and as a result tend to create conflicting constituencies
within each Baltic nation. Because of this competition, scarce resources
are not being used in the most effective way possible.
The spread of Internet is most widely advanced in Estonia. Tallinn and the
university town of Tartu are relatively well connected. Access to the full
Internet in Lithuania is extremely limited. Vilnius has a few random
connections (there is no real TCP/IP infrastructure in place) while Kaunas
does not have any at all. Latvia is somewhere in between. Riga is
connected to the Internet through Tallinn. Internet would be spreading
more quickly if there weren't at least two competing networks in each
country. Lots of smaller non-Internet electronic networks (UUCP, FIDONET,
GLASNET, and various railway networks exist and provide basic email
services).
The Estonian network which appears to be the most promising in the
long-term is run by Mr. Ants Work out of the Academy of Sciences Institute
of Cybernetics (IOC). It uses a leased fiber optic line to Helsinki (80 KM
away from Tallinn) as its window on the Internet. This Internet network,
known as Estnet, is largely self-financing within Estonia although the
Finnish Ministry of Education is picking up all telecommunications costs
(for the moment) as soon as the electronic traffic leaves Tallinn and
begins crossing the Baltic Sea. The Estonian university system (Tallinn
Technical University, Tartu University, etc.) as well as the Academy of
Sciences each pay about $10,000 a year to be a member of Estnet and
receive unlimited connectivity in return. The IOC believes that member
institutions should get used to paying for Internet just like their
counterparts do in the West.
The IOC and Estnet are also the primary participants in the BaltBone
project. This project is an attempt to connect major research and academic
institutions in the Baltic to a single electronic Backbone. Access to the
Internet would be provided via windows at either end of the network (in
Tallinn to Helsinki and in Vilnius to Warsaw through a line now under
construction). The creation of BaltBone is being financed in part by a
$150,000 grant from UNESCO for the purchase of necessary equipment. CoCom
restrictions have recently been lifted and it is hoped that the equipment
will be in place by the end of the year.
The second Internet network in Estonia is run by Mr. Jaak Lippmaa and the
Academy of Sciences' Institute of Physical Chemistry (KBFI). Its windows
on the Internet are two satellite dishes (one each in Tallinn and Tartu)
that transfer electronic traffic to Stockholm. The cost of financing this
network is about double what the IOC's costs are because of the added cost
of satellite traffic. All costs, for the moment, are being covered by the
Soros Foundation (Mr. Lippmaa is on the Estonian board) and by the Swedish
Government. As a result, being a part of this Internet network is
essentially free until the end of the year (this was how I got access to
the full Internet while in Estonia). What will happen by the end of the
year when funding runs out, no one is really sure. But since this network
controls the .ee domain, they will remain important players even after
their money runs out. It is possible that they will begin charging member
institutions for access to Internet in the future but that would probably
mean an end to the expensive satellite connections.
The problem with the conflicting networks created by uncoordinated Western
funding assistance can be seen clearly in Estonia. If two institutions
connected to different Estonian networks (KBFI and IOC) wish to send a
message to each other across Tallinn, the message has to be sent to
Stockholm and Helsinki for routing. The message cannot move across the two
networks within Tallinn. Steps have been taken to correct these problems.
The IOC and KBFI networks have been linked together in Tartu and linkage
in Tallinn is due to take place shortly.
The Baltic's Nordic neighbors are in the best position to push for greater
cooperation and linkage. At the moment, all international
telecommunication costs and Internet traffic is paid for by NORDUNET
(NORDUNET is a network of networks liking together the Internet Networks
of the five Nordic nations). As they are bearing the costs for
international Internet traffic to and from the Baltic, they are interested
in seeing the most rational use of their telecommunications resources. The
increased cooperation in Estonia is due largely to their efforts. The
arrival of UNESCO equipment, however, may well divide the two Estonian
camps once again as they decide where the hardware will be located.
Latvia's two competing networks are both located at the Latvian
University's Institute of Mathematics (IOM). The first network, an X.25
network is a gift from the German Government. Access will be provided to
international networks via Berlin once the network is established. As this
is not a TCP/IP network (Germans favor X.25) it is not a real Internet
network.
Latvia's TCP/IP Internet Network (Latnet) is run by different individuals
within the IOM--Mr. Janis Kikuts and Mr. Guntis Barzdins. They are
partners with the Estonian IOC in the BaltBone project and will get a
portion of the UNESCO equipment. At the moment, the IOM's window on the
INTERNET is through the IOC in Tallinn. Internet is beginning to spread
primarily in Riga through the various universities and academic
institutions in that city. These organizations pay a fee to be a member of
Latnet. The IOM is the domain administrator for the .lt domain.
The Lithuanian situation is the most complicated and confusing. This is
also one of the reasons why Internet has not really begun to spread there.
The BaltBone partners in Lithuania are the Institute of Mathematics and
Informatics (IOMI) in Vilnius and Mr. Rimvydas Telksnys. The IOMI and
Litnet are in a very weak position, however, because they have almost no
equipment to provide the necessary hardware to create a Lithuanian
Internet infrastructure. They are also in competition with LITERA (the
Lithuanian Academic Research Network) built up from existing UUCP
networks. LITERA is run by Algirdas Pakstas who is currently working in
Norway although he is the .lv domain administrator. This fact truly
complicates matters.
Some institutions in Lithuania (namely Vilnius University who is not
really connected with either LITERA or Litnet) have limited access to the
Internet. The Norwegian Crown provided the Lithuanian government with
access to a telecommunications satellite which also allows for some X.400
as well as TCP/IP connectivity. At the moment, this channel to Oslo is
Lithuania's window to the Internet. The window, however, is carefully
controlled and access to it is extremely limited. If access to the
Internet is given to institutions like Vilnius University, it is usually
restricted. For example, they can use TELNET but not FTP. Vilnius
University is in a privileged position because they have a Norwegian
volunteer who works with UNINET (the Norwegian Internet network) to
provide access.
NORDUNET, the united Nordic Internet Networks, besides paying for most of
the international connectivity costs for their Baltic neighbors, are also
helping acquire equipment. This project is coordinated by Mr. Mats Brunell
of Sweden. While Mr. Brunell has been very successful in acquiring
equipment at cut rate costs and this hardware is ready to be donated to
institutions in the Baltic, very little of it has been shipped to date.
The reason for this hold up is the internal conflict between competing
Baltic networks. As Lithuania is in the worse shape, most of the equipment
is scheduled to go there. However, since Litnet and LITERA cannot agree to
cooperate, NORDUNET is holding back its assistance these two networks
begin working together. If they gave equipment to one or the other,
NORDUNET feels it will be taking sides which it does not want to do. It
can't give equipment to both sides because it does not want to create to
separate and competing Internet networks as is the case in Estonia.
While the Nordic nations are chiefly responsible for the development of
Internet in the Baltic and are themselves a model of international
cooperation, even they seem to have problems coordinating assistance in
the Baltic. While the Nordic Council and other pan-Nordic organizations
like NORDUNET are supposed to coordinate Nordic assistance, they also
provide assistance which complicates matters some what. And while the
Nordic Council also agreed to coordinate Baltic assistance by decreeing
that Finland would primarily help Estonia, Sweden would primarily help
Latvia, Norway would primarily help Lithuania, and Denmark would fill in
the gaps, it does not always work that way. For example, Sweden is helping
one of the two Estonian networks while the Finns are helping the other
(coordination is lacking). And there are Germans helping the Latvians,
Americans (Soros) helping the Estonians, and UNESCO helping everyone which only make matters more
confusing.
Aware of these problems, NORDUNET has taken steps to make sure that at
least its resources are used efficiently and to encourage the Balts to
cooperate better among themselves. They arranged a Baltic Internet
Workshop in Riga in April in 1993 which I attended. A joint Training
Workshop is also being planned. NORDUNET representatives like Mats Brunell
also travel to the Baltic frequently to keep all the parties talking to
each other. It is ironic that Internet which is supposed to encourage
communication and bring people together has set people against each other
in the Baltic. This is yet another example that the legacy of the former
Soviet Union has still to be overcome.
Appendix 5
Using E-Mail in the Former Soviet Union and the Baltic States (A Guide for
IREX Scholars)
If you bring or have access to a personal computer with a modem in the
former Soviet Union, the best way stay in contact with colleagues, friends
and family is via electronic mail. Because of its convenience and power,
e-mail is rapidly becoming an important means of personal and professional
interaction in the West.*
For a variety of reasons, e-mail has also proven to be the most effective
means of communication with and within the former Soviet Union, where the
past two years have witnessed a rapid expansion of services. Proliferation
and growth of e-mail service providers has made such communications more
reliable and accessible, and less costly in real prices.
To be sure, there are still glitches, including technical problems that
sometimes delay international transmission and erratic user support.
Moreover, the antiquated former Soviet phone network can pose challenges
even for sophisticated users with high-quality modems.
There are now several FSU-wide e-mail providers. Most have "gateways" to
each other and connections of one sort or another to the Internet, so mail
can be sent to and received from all over the world.
Depending on the location of your placement, you should be able to select
a network that best suits your needs and budget. Capabilities vary widely,
as do costs. As inflation accelerates, networks are resorting increasingly
to charging ruble-dollar equivalents, and pre-payment for servicesmay
become the norm.
We recommend first checking with your host academic institution to see
what kind of network access might be available there. To use e-mail
independently, we recommend GlasNet if you can call easily to Moscow or
Kiev. If not, then Relcom is likely to be your best option.
Below is a list of major networks, with average prices (in dollars) for a
typical moderate user, defined as daily or near-daily sending and
receiving of international mail. Expect to pay some sort of additional
sign-up fee, often the equivalent of 1-2 months' fees.
Relcom / Demos
To establish an Email account on Relcom you will need to contact the
Relcom provider in the city where you will be working. The Moscow Relcom
office should be able to give you relevant local phone numbers and other
contact information.
Relcom/Demos approximate average monthly fee: $20-50. This can vary
radically in different cities.
Demos (headquarters)
pod.1 d.6 Ovchinnikovskaya nab.,
Moscow 113035
Phone: (095) 231 21 29
postmaster@hq.demos.su
Relcom (headquarters)
Moscow
Phone: (095) 943 47 35
E-mail: postmaster@kiae.su
GlasNet and GlasNet-Ukraine
Glasnet has several advantages, including low prices, ease of use, and the
availability of some valuable services, including inexpensive
international and domestic faxing. GlasNet's principal drawback for those
residing away from its host computers in Moscow and Kiev is the difficulty
"logging-on" to the network over long-distance phone lines from certain
cities. There's no predictable pattern here: for example, from Alma Ata,
connections to GlasNet's Moscow host are quite good, but from Kazan',
GlasNet is nearly impossible to use. To help resolve this problem, local
dial-up sites for GlasNet are being tested in St.Petersburg, Odessa, and
other cities.
You can also use Sprint or IASNet x.25 packet switch networks to login to
GlasNet in remote cities, but you will need to get a separate Sprint or
IASNet user id to do so. See appendices one and two which list of dialup
sites for each of these networks.
In April, 1993, a second host of the GlasNet system, "GlasNet- Ukraine"
began service in Kiev. Fees are lower than those at GlasNet-Moscow, and
they are charged in Ukrainian "coupons" instead of rubles.
GlasNet approximate average monthly fee: $10-25.
GlasNet Moscow
ul. Sadovaya-Chernogryazskaya, 4 suite 16 3rd floor 107074 Moscow
Phone: (095) 207-0704
Fax: 207-0889
E-mail: support@glas.apc.org
GlasNet-Ukraine
Institute for Theoretical Physics, Kiev
Phone: (044) 266 9481
Fax: 266 9475
E-mail: nmakovsky@gluk.apc.org
For more information:
GlasNet-USA
Mr. David Caulkins
E-mail: dcaulkins@igc.apc.org
Sovam Teleport
Sovam has a two-tiered price structure. Past scholars have been successful
in obtaining accounts in rubles instead of dollars, so long as they signed
the contract in the FSU, and not the United States.
Sovam approximate average monthly fee (Dollars): $50-100
The same dial-up that one uses to connect to Sovam USA with a dollar
account can be used to connect to compuserve, mcimail, etc., on a
principle similar to the Sprint system, and probably with Sprint-like
prices (up to a dollar per minute of on-line time).
Sovam Teleport
St. Petersburg
Nevskii prospekt 30
St. Petersburg, 191011
2a Nezhdanova Street
Moscow, 103009
Phone: 299-34-66
Fax: 299-41-21
E-mail: support@sovamsu.sovusa.com
or just support@sovusa.com
SUEARN
For a full list of nodes, contact the main SUEARN site at:
N. D. Zelinskii Institute of Organic Chemistry Leninskii prospekt 47
Moscow 117913
Phone: (095) 135 41 33
Fax: (095) 135 53 28
E-mail: ncc@suearn2.bitnet
U. S. Sprint
"SprintNet" is joint venture between U.S. Sprint and various NIS
communications authorities to provide Western-level telecommunications
services in the former Soviet Union, including e-mail. The most reliable
FSU-wide network, Sprint is also the most expensive. Sprint is useful if
you absolutely need to log into a U.S. e-mail service (such as PeaceNet)
while overseas, but this will cost you about 55 cents a minute. A list of
Sprint dial-up sites is attached.
Sprint Networks
Ul. Tverskaya 7, podezd 7
103375 Moscow
(In the Central Telegraph building)
095-201-6890
095-923-2344 (fax)
The Special Case of the Baltics
With the help of NORDUNET (the Scandinavian Internet), "live" connections
to Internet are now available at several universities in the Baltics.
Recently, American scholars in Latvia have successfully logged onto their
home Bitnet accounts. To establish an account, contact the computer
science or "informatics" department of the nearest university. You may be
charged anywhere from $0-$20 a month.
"Fidonet" (somewhat primitive "bulletin board") systems have been
prevalent for some time in the Baltics, and generally provide inexpensive
e-mail services. However, their reliability varies widely, and they are
generally characterized by poor and/or slow international transfers.
Relcom is also available in the Baltics, where it is know as "Jet."
Telephone connections to GlasNet in Moscow are generally quite poor and
becoming increasingly expensive.
For more information on Baltic scholarly networking, contact:
Mats Brunell
Swedish Institute of Computer Science
Box 1263, S-164 28, Kista, Sweden
Mats.Brunell@sics.se
46 8 72 21 563
Ants Works
Insitute of Cybernetics
Akadeemia Tee 21, Tallinn EE0026, Estonia E-mail:
ants%ioc.ee@sunic.sunet.se
372 2 52 56 22
Guntis Barzdins
Institute of Mathematics and Computer Science University of Latvia
Rainis blvd. 29, Riga LV1459, Latvia
guntis%mii.lu.lv@sunic.sunet.se
371 2 21 24 27
Laimuts Telksyns
Institute of Mathematics and Informatics Gosteuto 12, Vilnius 2600,
Lithuania
telksyns%mii.lt@sunic.sunet.se
About Modems
You need a modem to log on to an e-mail account from your personal
computer. If you're bringing a computer, install an internal modem, so
that you don't have to worry about transforming the power supply on an
external modem (also one less thing to carry).
Make sure the modem has "error correction," to compensate for noisy FSU
phone lines. The protocol to look for is called "MNP-5", and try to get
this as a hardware feature built into the modem as opposed to a software
add-on. We don't recommend that you get any faster than 2400bps because
faster modems (e.g. 9600bps) don't always work well on FSU phone lines and
few host systems can accommodate higher speeds.
Once you arrive, there are several ways to connect your modem. If you clip
off the end of a standard US modular phone cable, you will see 4 separate
wires: yellow, red, green, and black. The yellow and black are irrelevant;
you can ignore them. What you need to do is connect the red and the green
wires to the screw terminals in a Soviet phone outlet. You can do this by
simply attaching the wires, or you can use alligator clips. Alternately,
you can cannibalize a phone jack from an old Soviet phone and wire the red
and green wires of your modular cable into it. Sometimes you can find an
actual adaptor between the U.S.-style modular phone plug (an "RJ-11" plug)
and Soviet jacks, which should cost about 50 cents. The supply of these
items is somewhat erratic, however.
You may also need to install communications software on your computer to
employ the modem. Procomm and Red Ryder are the most common packages for
DOS and Macintosh users respectively.
How you can help
If you use e-mail during your stay, please summarize your experiences in
your final report. This helps IREX track rapidly evolving developments in
computer communications, enabling us to make more efficient investments in
our programs, as well as give better advice to future grantees.
* Why Electronic Mail?
Electronic mail overcomes many of the problems and cost of using
telephones and regular surface mail to communicate. Using a computer
terminal or a personal computer with a modem connected to a phone line,
users compose and send messages at their convenience. Each message is then
forwarded by the user's network to its destination in the addressee's
"mailbox," which may be located in Moscow or halfway around the world.
When the person to whom it is sent logs in to their e-mail network, the
message is waiting; there is no need for both parties to be present
simultaneously at their computers. E-mail costs are less than those of
long distance telephone calls or air parcel services, and users can also
employ many systems to send fax and telex messages, or access lists and
databases worldwide.
Appendix 6
Cyrillic Character Encoding Methods
When corresponding with colleagues in the ex-USSR, questions often arise
about the possibility of sending and receiving messages written in
Cyrillic characters. In short, it _is_ possible and not even terribly
complicated, but requires some background understanding of what is going
on.
IBM-compatible computers
IBM-compatible computers use a standard set of letters and symbols called
the "ASCII" character set. All standard Latin letters, numbers and
punctuation marks are assigned a number between 1-128. This is called the
"lower ASCII register." In fact, however, 255 total ASCII character codes
exist, and the additional "upper register" (129-256) can be assigned to
other characters--including Cyrillic letters--by special software.
To display and manipulate Cyrillic characters on IBM-compatible computers,
one must simply activate a Cyrillic screen/keyboard driver, a small piece
of software which assigns Cyrillic characters to the upper register and
runs constantly in the background while you work in word processors and
other programs. Normally one can write as usual in Latin characters, press
some combination of keys (both shift keys simultaneously for example) to
change to Cyrillic, write in Cyrillic, change back, etc. The resultant
document can then be read on any other machine also using a standard
Cyrillic driver. Drivers are available for most different types of
monitors and with different keyboard layouts--phonetic or standard Russian.
For communications purposes, the characters in the lower ASCII register
are represented by 7 data bits, or different permutations of 7 "1s" and
"0s". The upper ASCII register is represented by the addition of an 8th
bit to the original 7. Most networks within the newly independent states
exchange data among themselves in 8-bit format, so it is therefore
possible to exchange Cyrillic message texts freely in that part of the
world. However, the larger Internet universe is typically limited to 7-bit
transmission, which makes ordinary, unmediated exchange of Cyrillic
characters impossible.
There are several ways around this problem. First, one can simply write
messages in transliteration (Latin characters representing the original
Cyrillic) from the start.
Second, there are various pairs of programs which transliterate
automatically. On the US end the writer would run a program to transform
Cyrillic text into transliterated Latin text, send the resultant Latin
text, and then the recipient could either read the transliteration as is
or run the program in reverse to transform the text back into Cyrillic.
The authors will attempt to make copies of this software available on the
Library of Congress Gopher or an FTP site.
Third, there is a standard pair of encoding programs called
uuencode/uudecode (available as free software or "sharewhere" just about
anyplace--ask your system administrator) which can be used to transform
any computer file (program, plain text, WordPerfect file, etc.) into
gibberish ASCII text. One can then send the resultant gibberish ASCII text
through the network, and the recipient can uudecode it to recover the
original file.
All of these methods are quite simple; the important thing is to agree
with one's correspondents ahead of time which technique will be used.
A note about the WordPerfect Cyrillic module: While the WordPerfect
Russian module is great for creating and printing Cyrillic documents, it
does not use a standard encoding pattern which can be used to send
Cyrillic e-mail. One can, of course, uuencode a file in WordPerfect
Cyrillic, send it, and the recipient can uudecode and read the resultant
document--in WordPerfect.
Macintosh Computers
The type of Cyrillic encoding described above has not, to date, been
developed for Macintosh. One can, of course, create documents in Cyrillic
fonts, but this will not offer the online Cyrillic e-mail abilities
described above and means it is impossible to send Cyrillic messages to a
non-Macintosh. Macintosh Cyrillic fonts simply reassign the _lower_ ASCII
register to Cyrillic characters. Sending Cyrillic e-mail to other
Macintoshes, however, is easy: simply change your Cyrillic font to a Latin
one, send the resultant gibberish text, and make sure that your
correspondent on the other end knows that he or she should simply change
back to the same Cyrillic Macintosh font in which you created the document.