README.TXT	Ver. 1.0.3	10/16/2006

Welcome to my Morse code rendition of Edgar Rice Burrough's
"A Princess of Mars".  This book is out of copyright, and
was downloaded from the Project Gutenberg website as a plain
ASCII text file.  The Project Gutenberg license has also been
included in the file LICENSE.TXT.  Please take the time to
read this license.

My reasoning for doing this crazy task was that I was
stagnating in my quest to achieve 25 WPM in Morse code.  I
had been using the G4FON Koch method training program, but
had grown tired of listening to random characters and pre-
written QSO files.  I had seen someting similar to what I
wanted to do on Chuck Adam's, K7QO's, website
(http://www.k7qo.net), and thought it was a great idea!  The
only problem was that Chuck's books in Morse code started at
20 WPM, which is a bit fast for me, so I decided to try to
make one that had a character speed of 25 WPM, but started with
a fairly slow overall code speed of 12 WPM, and worked its way
up as the book progressed.

To accomplish my goal, I first stripped the Project Gutenberg
header and trailer from the file (see LICENSE.TXT for this info),
then I wrote a Python program to remove or replace any non-standard
Morse code characters (A-Z, 0-9, ".,-/"), to make it easier on
other "readers".  Then I split the file into individual chapter
files, plus the foreword file.  In "A Princess of Mars", there are
28 chapter files and the foreword file.  After doing this, I then
wrote another Python program to split each chapter file into
managable "chunks" of approximately 15 - 20 minutes in duration,
at the prescribed WPM rate, which was preset for each chapter in 
a configuration file.  This has resulted in 276 "part"
files.

After splitting the files up into managable chunks, I batch-
converted all of the files into Morse code audio files.  The
batch job first ran each text files through a Linux program
called "tomorse", set to the proper WPM rate, with a 700 Hz tone.
This generated a .WAV audio file.  After this, the .WAV audio file
was then run through the "lame" audio converter program to encode
them in .MP3 format.  The specs for this are:
16 KHz, 16 Kbps, mono.  This results in the smallest possible
audio files, that are still quite understandable.  There may still
be some artifacts on the .MP3 audio files.  These are a result of
the compression algorithms that were used to convert the .WAV files
to .MP3 format.  These artifacts should be small and all but un-
noticable.

The chapter and part brakedown is as follows:

	Chapter       Speed      Parts
	------------------------------
	Foreword      25/12 WPM      7
	Chapter 1     25/12 WPM     14
	Chapter 2     25/12 WPM      9
	Chapter 3     25/12 WPM     15
	Chapter 4     25/12 WPM     12
	Chapter 5     25/12 WPM      9
	Chapter 6     25/15 WPM      8
	Chapter 7     25/15 WPM     10
	Chapter 8     25/15 WPM     10
	Chapter 9     25/15 WPM      7
	Chapter 10    25/15 WPM     16
	Chapter 11    25/15 WPM     11
	Chapter 12    25/18 WPM      8
	Chapter 13    25/18 WPM      9
	Chapter 14    25/18 WPM     12
	Chapter 15    25/18 WPM     12
	Chapter 16    25/18 WPM     14
	Chapter 17    25/18 WPM     12
	Chapter 18    25/21 WPM      5
	Chapter 19    25/21 WPM      6
	Chapter 20    25/21 WPM     11
	Chapter 21    25/21 WPM     12
	Chapter 22    25/21 WPM     12
	Chapter 23    25/21 WPM      7
	Chapter 24    25/25 WPM      8
	Chapter 25    25/25 WPM      5
	Chapter 26    25/25 WPM      7
	Chapter 27    25/25 WPM      6
	Chapter 28    25/25 WPM      2

Enjoy these files, I'm passing them along as I got them, for free.
If you enjoy them, and know of someone else that might, feel free
to burn a copy and give it to them.  The only thing I ask is that
you don't misrepresent this as your work.  The conversion from
printed copy to ASCII text took the Project Gutenberg volunteers
quite a lot of time and effort, and the conversion from ASCII
text to audio files took me quite a bit of work as well.  All we
are charging is recognition for our hard work.  Also, if you pass
this book along, keep this README.TXT and the LICENSE.TXT files
with it.

There may be more books in Morse code in the future.  That is not
for certain yet, because they do take a lot of time and effort.
Where I was able, I wrote programs to manipulate the text files,
but the actual conversion from text to audio was performed in a
batch-mode, using easy to get open source Linux programs.
If one of you gentle readers would like to attempt this, please
contact me and I will be more than glad to give you a copy of my
programs, and as much information as you might wish.

To fully comply with the Project Gutenberg redistribution requirements,
I have enclosed the original ASCII text to this book, in it's
entirety, in a subdirectiry labled "OriginalWork".

Comments and suggestions may be sent to: ac4fs AT bellsouth DOT net.
(email address somewhat obfuscated to prevent web robots from nabbing
 it and me getting spammed into the stone age!  Simply remove all
 spaces and convert the upper-case words into their corresponding
 characters in order to complete the address)

73, Howard
AC4FS