The files consist of the entire text of the NT.  The
original text was entered into a mini-computer here in the states
about a decade ago by a somewhat "offbeat" Christian sect known
as "The Way international" headquartered in New Knoxville, Ohio, 
There christology was very similar to certain sects of the ancient
eastern (Syriac) church.  SO, to make a long story short, they decided
that the Syriac translation wasn't a translation at all, but the
original NT! Therefore, they began a large scale computer-based
project relating to the Syriac NT.  Origianlly, there level of
sophistication was (obviously) very low,  However, since the only
place to study Syriac was the major universities, several of the 
project leaders began studying with Arthur Voobus at U Chicago
and the S Segert at UCLA.  Most of them eventually distanced themselves
from the sect as their personal levels of knowledge elevated.
This caused a tremendous "brain-drain" on the project and eventually 
it began to die out.  There were several internal political struggles
and eventually, after the publication of three volumes, there
were no more project funds or personnel.  They published a 
NT Syriac concordance, and reprinted a Syraic text and Jennings'
NT Lexicon.  The Syriac text is NOT a critical one at all.
It was basically just input from the 1800's edition of the Syriac
Peshitta.
The group tried to sell the Electronic text for some outrageous
price but had no takers.  Then they lowered the price and offered a 
few other things, but still didn't sell a single copy. I asked for an
electronic version and was able to get permission from all of the 
principal researchers, but not the organization itself.  Finally
I obtained a copy on 9 track tape from them with the help of the 
ancient biblical Mss center in Claremont, CA.  I was granted unlimited
personal academic research rights.  I off loaded the ASCII text
from the 9 track IBM formatted tape on an HP-3000.  I downloaded it
to 5.25" DOS formatted floppies and then to 3.5" DOS disks. From there 
I transferred it to a Macintosh (This was back in the days when it was
difficult! 8-)>   ).
Once it got to the Mac, I created a font for it using Fontastic
a commercial font editor for the Mac.  Then I wrote a Pascal
program to turn the text into a right to left contextually formatted
text that looked, and printed like proper Syriac.  I believe
that I gave you the original ASCII text, the converted ascii
files, the conversion algorithm (including source code), and the fonts.
If not you should get those from me.  (I think I could still find
them!)
The problem: Whose text is it?  If the many hours that I worked on it
make the right to left contextually formatted text "mine", then
as far as I am cocerned, it is public domain.  If, however, my work 
does not make it mine, I don't know the legal status of the text.
I will try to get in contact with The Ancient Biblical Mss Center
when I get home (I am in Northern California several hundred miles 
from home right now) and try to secure a copy of any agreements
that wwere made in writing at the time.  I will also try to get in touch 
with someone "Offical" who can formally grant me permission to
give the text or at least my version , away to whomever asks for it.
Please feel freee to contact me with other issues, comments, 
questions....  Also feel free to bug me if you don't
hear back from me inthe near future.
Ra
Raymond G. Harder
rharder@atl.calstate.edu