I cleaned up your README and made it use Markdown and extracted the license to its own file.

MIT-LICENSE

@@ -0,0 +1,26 @@
+Copyright © 2009 Andrew McElroy
+
+index.html  is Copyright © 2009 _why
+test.rb, tryruby_runner.rb Copyright © 2009 David Miani
+
+
+Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person
+obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation
+files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without
+restriction, including without limitation the rights to use,
+copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell
+copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the
+Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following
+conditions:
+
+The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be
+included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
+
+THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND,
+EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES
+OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND
+NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT
+HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY,
+WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING
+FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
+OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.

README.md

@@ -0,0 +1,132 @@
+TRYRUBY!
+========
+(is now 1.9-ready and hosted using 1.9. Please note this is beta software.)
+
+What is all this?
+-----------------
+The best way to learn a thing is to [try it][2]!
+
+Try out Ruby. Learn about it. Be guided on a veritable carnival ride of
+Ruby wondrousness.
+
+When you come out the other side, you'll likely find that
+
+1. Your computer understands what you're saying! And you don't have much
+   trouble speaking its dialect.
+2. You have some skill in climbing about on your computer's [command
+   line](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_line_interface).
+
+It was originally made by a fellow named [_why][1]. But he disappeared. So
+some other folks have rebuilt it. (See the license for details.)
+
+You can help!
+=============
+It would be wonderful to have some help building this. Here's some
+descriptions of what's going on.
+
+
+What is /irb.cgi?
+-----------------
+After [_why][1]'s disappearance, the only part of the [TryRuby][2]
+implementation that wasn't able to be recovered from archive.org
+is the /irb file (or /irb.cgi currently, you can change the name
+of the file used in js/irb.js). This script should:
+
+- Take one GET param `cmd`, which will contain a single line of
+Ruby to run. It can also be `!INIT!IRB`, which is called at the
+start of the session. The current implementation of irb.cgi
+ignores this. `reset` should also do something special (but
+doesn't at the moment).
+- Return the output, optionally formatted using normal shell
+escapes (eg `\033[1;33mThis appears orange`)
+
+The output has four main formats for returning a result, error
+output, javascript function and line continuation. This is used
+by the help system so that it can detect when a user has entered
+the next step for the tutorial.
+
+Output results should be formatted with a "=> " at the front of
+the output. For example: `/irb.cgi?cmd=3*4` should output `=> 12`.
+Shell escape codes can be used to give the output different colors,
+for example `=> \033[1;20m12`. This will automatically be removed
+when used with the help system. Note that you don't and shouldn't
+terminate these shell escapes with `\033[m` (like with a normal shell).
+
+Standard output should not be prefixed by '=>', so `/irb.cgi?cmd=puts(44)`
+should output `44\n=> nil`. Here 44 is output, and nil is returned.
+Again shell escapes can be used.
+
+Errors should be formated just like standard output, but should
+have no return. For example, `/irb.cgi?cmd=non_existant_function` should
+output something like
+
+    \033[1;33mNameError: undefined local variable or method
+    `non_existant_function' for main:Object".
+
+Javascript functions (such as `Popup.goto`) should use the format
+`\033[1;JsmJAVASCRIPT CODE\033[m`. The javascript code will then be run.
+For example, `/irb.cgi?cmd=Popup.goto("http://www.google.com")` should
+output `\033[1;JSmwindow.irb.options.popup_goto("http://www.google.com")\033[m`.
+
+Finally, if the command isn't finished (eg `def myfunc`), then ".."
+should be returned. Eg `/irb.cgi?cmd=def%20myfunc` should return "..".
+
+
+How this works with the help system
+-----------------------------------
+The help system works with the file /tutorials/intro.html. There is a
+<div class="stretcher"> section for each part of the tutorial. Most of
+it is just the text for that part of the tutorial. However, there is
+also a <div class="answer|stdout">regex</div> section. If this matches
+against the output for a command, then the tutorial will go to the next
+step.
+
+When the class is "answer", then it will match against lines beginning
+with `=>`. So `<div class="answer">\d+</div>` will match any code that
+returns a number. Other output can be shown as well, eg `someoutput\n=>
+42` will match this. The exact regexp is `^\s*=> match_regex_from_help\s*$`.
+So the line must be an exact match, other than spaces and the initial `=>`
+
+When the class is "stdout", the match must work on a complete line. Eg
+`<div class="stdout">hello</div>` will match `hello`, or `start\n
+hello\ngoodbye` (leading spaces are ignored, and multiple lines are
+searched. The exact regex is `^\s*match_regex_from_help$`
+
+As a special case, if the tutorial expects that a command isn't finished
+(such as with `def myfunc`), then `<div class="stdout">..</div>` will be
+used. This is changed from the original implementation [_why][1] used,
+which was `<div class="stdout"></div>` as I couldn't get it to work like
+that.
+
+Another special case, if the return should some javascript code, then
+something like `<div class="stdout">\033\[1;JSm.*popup_goto\(.*\)\033\[m.*</div>`
+will be used.
+
+Current Implementation
+----------------------
+The current implementation doesn't use persistent processes like irb.
+What it does is it stores all previous successfully run commands in
+`session['previous_commands']`, and runs them all first (disabling `stdout`).
+Then it will finally run the command. It uses a primitive method of
+detecting incomplete statements (with the function `unfinished_statement?`)
+and when a incomplete statement is finished (`finished_statement?`).
+The current nesting level (for example,  entering "class X" on one line
+and pressing return will have a nesting level of 2) is stored in
+`$session['nesting_level']`. All the lines of the current incomplete
+statement are stored in `$session['current_statement']`.
+
+To work with javascript functions, a special class `JavascriptResult`
+was written, with one accessor, `:js`. If the result of an eval returns
+this object, then the output will be formatted in the javascript method.
+
+The sessions are now stored in a tmp folder. For the time being it is
+within the htdoc path. I know this is bad. I have included an index.html
+that redirects you back to the home page in the mean time.
+Ideally, I need to put this some place like /var/logs/tryruby.
+
+From there I will see about the viability of making this use the r bridge so you
+can have ruby to R lessons. :-)
+
+
+  [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_lucky_stiff
+  [2]: http://tryruby.org/