UPLOADED 10-May-1997
by: "Glenn P.," <C128User@GTI.Net>

                               Information File:
                          ***** THE GOLDEN KEY *****

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: MacDonald, George (b.10-Dec-1824, d.18-Sep-1905):
==================================================================
     Scottish novelist and poet, writer of fantasies for children. He served
briefly as a Congregationalist minister, but spent most of his life in England
as a lecturer and writer. Among his best-known works for children is "The
Golden Key" (1868); others include "At the Back of the North Wind" (1871) and
"The Princess and Curdie" (1883). He also wrote two allegorical fantasies for
adults: "Phantastes" (1858) and "Lillith" (1895).

                          *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

FILE DESCRIPTION:
================
     I have uploaded to CompuServe, in the Commodore Applications Forum
(CIS:CBMAPP) the full text to "The Golden Key", in two separate ".SDA" files.
The first of these, "GKEY-ALL.SDA", is simply the entire text conveyed as a
Self-Dissolving Archive of one large textfile. The second, "GKEY-IN3.SDA",
is a Self-Dissolving Archive of almost the exact same text, but split into
three separae textfiles of a size that is far more likely to fit within the
average Commodore-based word processor. In both cases the story has been
stored in ordinary, plain-vanilla 80-column Commodore PETASCII.


GENERAL INFORMATION:
===================
     The full title of this story is "The Golden Key: A Boy And A Girl In The
Garden Of Eden", by George MacDonald.

               "The Golden Key": TABLE of CONTENTS
               ===================================
               Chapter    I: Where The Rainbow Ends
  PART ONE     Chapter   II: Two Runaways
               Chapter  III: The Air-Fish & Grandmother
               Chapter   IV: The Language of Nature
               -----------------------------------------
               Chapter    V: The Arrival of Mossy
  PART TWO     Chapter   VI: A Sea of Shadows
               Chapter  VII: The Old Man of the Sea
               -----------------------------------------
               Chapter VIII: The Old Man of the Earth
  PART THREE   Chapter   IX: The Old Man of the Fire
               Chapter    X: From Where the Shadows Fall

     Take note that if you download "GKEY-ALL.SDA", the file will *NOT* be
split into parts.


FILE STATISTICS:
===============
     As is my custom, I have numbered all of the lines in the story for the
greater convenience of the reader. Chapter headings, introductory material,
blank lines, etc., are NOT numbered, so the relation between the count of
STORY lines and the TOTAL number of lines in the file tends to be rather
tenuous.

     Here are the various file statistics:

IN "GKEY-ALL.SDA":                    The 32-bit CRC for "GKEY-ALL.SDA"
=================                         is: 1585702889.
Size, Bytes: 37,845
Disk Blocks:    149
     "GKEY.ALL"                       The 32-bit CRC for "GKEY.ALL"
          Size, Bytes: 84,596             is: 347128931.
          Disk Blocks:    334
          -------------------
          Story Lines:  1,653
          Other Lines:    326
          Total Lines:  1,979


IN "GKEY-IN3.SDA":                    The 32-bit CRC for "GKEY-IN3.SDA"
=================                         is: 357364718.
Size, Bytes: 38,353
Disk Blocks:    151
     "GKEY.PART1"                     The 32-bit CRC for "GKEY.PART1"
          Size, Bytes: 31,783             is: 2872829618.
          Disk Blocks:    126
          -------------------
          Story Lines:    593
          Other Lines:    152
          Total Lines:    745

     "GKEY.PART2"                     The 32-bit CRC for "GKEY.PART2"
          Size, Bytes: 29,133             is: 2594763542.
          Disk Blocks:    115
          -------------------
          Story Lines:    582
          Other Lines:    100
          Total Lines:    682

     "GKEY.PART3"                     The 32-bit CRC for "GKEY.PART3"
          Size, Bytes: 24,251             is: 3767761762.
          Disk Blocks:     96
          -------------------
          Story Lines:    478
          Other Lines:     94
          Total Lines:    572


EXTRACTION:
==========
     Although these are COMPRESSED files, you won't need any special program
or decompressor to extract them; these are "Self-Dissolving" ARChives, or
".SDA"'s -- the decompressor program is built in! Just LOAD and RUN each file
as if it were an ordinary BASIC program. Insert a formatted disk into drive
Device #8 that has at least 340 blocks free on it, press the RETURN key, when
ready, and the textfiles will be decompressed and written to that disk, all
automatically.


CRC CHECKSUMS:
=============
     The CRC checksums given above aren't strictly necessary, since the ARC
program which compressed these files itself checksums each and every file it
compresses, and the built-in decompressor verifies each file as it is being
decompressed. However, for those who desire a more rigorous test of file
integrity, download or otherwise obtain the "CRC32" program (not included --
you must obtain it separately) and run it on whichever file you wish to
verify, then compare the result you get against the appropriate CRC checksum
given above. If the numbers match, then the file is correct. Otherwise there's
an error someplace.

     IMPORTANT!: Dowloading via XModem will generally add *padding* to the end
of the file; this invariably CHANGES the CRC that results when the file is
tested. If you are testing a file AFTER it is dissolved, you don't have to
worry about padding -- there won't be any. But if you will be testing the
".SDA" file itself after downloading, then padding is a concern. If possible,
always REMOVE any such padding before testing; otherwise your file is just
about GUARANTEED to generate an erroneous CRC checksum (a "false negative").
The padding generally consists of a series of repeated Control-Z's (ASCII
026, decimal) at the end of the file.


MISCELLANEOUS:
=============
     One editing note -- during the story, a tale by the name of "Silverhair"
is mentioned. This proves to be simply "Goldilocks And The Three Bears", and
since I found reading about "Silverhair" instead of "Goldilocks" to be quite
jarring, I substituted our familiar "Goldilocks" for "Silverhair". Other than
this, the story comes to you almost verbatim.

     A considerably shorter version of this information file precedes the
first Chapter in both ".SDA" versions of this story.


STORY SAMPLE:
============
     Here is the FIRST CHAPTER of "The Golden Key"; by it you may judge for
yourself whether the rest of the story is worth the download.

"The Golden Key: A Boy And A Girl In The Garden Of Eden",
by George MacDonald.

[SAMPLE: Chapter I Only.]

Chapter I: Where The Rainbow Ends

0001:               There was a boy who used to sit in
0002:          the twilight and listen to his
0003:          great-aunt's stories.

0004:               She told him that if he could
0005:          reach the place where the end of the
0006:          rainbow stands he would find there a
0007:          golden key.

0008:               "And what is the key for?" the boy
0009:          would ask. "What is it the key of? What
0010:          will it open?"

0011:               "That nobody knows," his aunt
0012:          would reply. "He has to find that out."

0013:               "I suppose, being gold," the boy
0014:          once said, thoughtfully, "that I could
0015:          get a good deal of money for it if I
0016:          sold it."

0017:               "Better never find it than sell
0018:          it," returned his aunt.

0019:               And then the boy went to bed and
0020:          dreamed about the golden key.

0021:               Now all that his great-aunt told
0022:          the boy about the golden key would have
0023:          been nonsense, had it not been that
0024:          their little house stood on the borders
0025:          of Fairyland. For it is perfectly well
0026:          known that out of Fairyland nobody ever
0027:          can find where the rainbow stands. The
0028:          creature takes such good care of its
0029:          golden key, always flitting from place
0030:          to place, lest any one should find it!
0031:          But in Fairyland it is quite different.
0032:          Things that look real in this country
0033:          ook very thin indeed in Fairyland,
0034:          while some of the things that here
0035:          cannot stand still for a moment, will
0036:          not move there. So it was not in the
0037:          least absurd of the old lady to tell
0038:          her nephew such things about the
0039:          golden key.

0040:               "Did you ever know anybody find
0041:          it?" he asked, one evening.

0042:               "Yes. Your father, I believe,
0043:          found it."

0044:               "And what did he do with it, can
0045:          you tell me?"

0046:               "He never told me."

0047:               "What was it like?"

0048:               "He never showed it to me."

0049:               "How does a new key come there
0050:          always?"

0051:               "I don't know. There it is."

0052:               "Perhaps it is the rainbow's egg!"

0053:               "Perhaps it is. You will be a
0054:          happy boy if you find the nest."

0055:               "Perhaps it comes tumbling down
0056:          the rainbow from the sky."

0057:               "Perhaps it does."

[Chapter One Ends Here.]

     Are you sufficiently intrigued? What IS this "golden key"? Does the boy
ever find it? AND WHAT IS IT THE KEY TO...?   ;)


COPYRIGHT:
=========
     This E-Text is in the Public Domain.

>>>>> End of Text <<<<<


