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                       ++ QWK is pronounced QUICK ++
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                                What is QWK?
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  The idea of a QWK mail system originated with the great German General,
Albrecht von Wallenstein. Since his time, it has evolved into more than
even he would have dreamed. The acronym, 'QWK', originally stood for the
phrase, 'Quality Warring Knights', which referred to to quality of knights
used in his regiment. While he was far from his men, he would have many
messages sent back and forth, which of course took a long time back then. He
devised a method of speeding up the process, which later erronously became
known as the QWK system of mail transfers. The idea of it spread slowly,
only much later becoming popular again, in the computer world. Though very
few people actually know the history of the QWK mail system, I felt that I
should spread the truth and give credit where it is due.
                [ignore the validity of the previous text]

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                               Using QWK Mail
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  To use QWK mail, simply log on to your favorite bulletin board system that
supports the QWK mail feature. Go to the proper menu and select the bases
you wish to scan, which archiver you want to use, wether to scan for new
files of not, and whatever else you want to do and is allowed by the system.
Then download the QWK mail packet and place it in the directory that
is declared in Sinister as your Path to QWK Files. Then load up Sinister
and open the packet and do your stuff. If you have any replies packed
after your excursion into the realm of Offline Mail, the reply packet will
be named the same as your QWK packet, except the extension will be .REP (for
example, if you download a QWK file called 'THE_BBS.QWK' the reply file will
be named 'THE_BBS.REP'. Got it?) Call your favorite bulletin board back
again (yes, the one you just called before) and go to the same menu that you
downloaded the QWK packet from. While there, press whatever key you have to
to UPLOAD the packet. Do that, follow the instructions of your favorite
Terminal Program to upload the file. Enter the path and filename and
whatever else you have to do (there's just way too many terminal programs for
me to tell you how to do this properly). Upload it, watch in amazement as
your replies are magically transfered from you computer to the one(s)
running the bulletin board! But please, don't be alarmed.. It's
technological magic, not funky, Merlin magic. It won't hurt you unless you
hurt it first.
  After you have accomplished this (assuming you did), logoff and go do the
messages on another board the same exact way. Keep doing this until everyone
in the world, even those who don't own a computer, know that you are using
the Sinister Offline Mail System and when they ask, be sure to tell them
that you have never used anything more user friendly, configurable, and
simple. Tell them that if given a choice, you would choose Sinister over
a gallon of rum and a puppy.

Thank you for your time in reading this. The world is a much safer place
with this knowledge as widespread as possible.

                                                - D'mitri D'milo
