Amiga Plus 2000 #5/Amiga Plus CD - 2000 - No. 5.iso/Games/PD/Angband/help/version.txt

Text File | 2000-01-01 | 21KB | 468 lines

=== Version Information ===

This file was last updated for Angband 2.9.0.

Make sure to read the newsgroup ("rec.games.roguelike.angband"), and to visit
the Official Angband Home Page ("http://thangorodrim.angband.org") for the
most up to date information about Angband.

Angband 2.9.0 has an incredibly complex history, and is the result of a
lot of work by a lot of people, all of whom have contributed their time
and energy for free, being rewarded only by the pleasure of keeping alive
one of the best freeware games available anywhere.

The version control files, if they existed, would span more than ten years
time, and more than six different primary developers.  Without such files,
we must rely on simpler methods, such as change logs, source file diffs, and
word of mouth.  Some of this information is summarized in this file.

Please be sure to read the copyright information at the end of this file.

=== Brief Version History ===

First came "VMS Moria", by Robert Alan Koeneke (1985).

Then came "Umoria" (Unix Moria), by James E. Wilson (1989).

Details about the history of the various flavors of "moria", the direct
ancestor to Angband, can be found elsewhere, and a note from Robert Alan
Koeneke is included in this file.  Note that "moria" has been ported to
a variety of platforms, and has its own newsgroup, and its own fans.

In 1990, Alex Cutler and Andy Astrand, with the help of other students
at the University of Warwick, created Angband 1.0, based on the existing
code for Umoria 5.2.1.  They wanted to expand the game, keeping or even
strengthening the grounding in Tolkien lore, while adding more monsters
and items, including unique monsters and artifact items, plus activation,
pseudo-sensing, level feelings, and special dungeon rooms.

Over time, Sean Marsh, Geoff Hill, Charles Teague, and others, worked on
the source, releasing a copy known as "Angband 2.4.frog_knows" at some
point, which ran only on Unix systems, but which was ported by various
people to various other systems.  One of the most significant ports was
the "PC Angband 1.4" port, for old DOS machines, which added color and
various other significant changes, only some of which ever made it back
into the official source.

Then Charles Swiger ([e-mail]) took over, sometime in late
1993, cleaning up the code, fixing a lot of bugs, and bringing together
various patches from various people, resulting in several versions of
Angband, starting with Angband 2.5.1 (?), and leading up to the release
of Angband 2.6.1 (and Angband 2.6.2) in late 1994.  Some of the changes
during this period were based on suggestions from the "net", and from
various related games, including "UMoria 5.5", "PC Angband 1.4", and
"FAngband".

Angband 2.6.1 was primarily targetted towards Unix/NeXT machines, and
it required the use of the low level "curses" commands for all screen
manipulation and keypress interaction.  Each release had to be ported
from scratch to any new platforms, normally by creating visual display
code that acted as a "curses" emulator.  One such port was "Macintosh
Angband 2.6.1", by Keith Randall, which added support for color, and
which formed the basis for the first release of Angband 2.7.0.

During the last half of 1994, I (Ben Harrison) had been playing with
the Angband source, primarily to investigate the possibility of making
some kind of automatic player for Angband, like the old "rogue-o-matic"
program for the game "rogue".  The difficulty of compiling a version
for the Macintosh, and the complexity of the code, prevented this, and
so I began cleaning up the code in various ways for my own personal use.

In late 1994, Charles Swiger announced that he was starting a real job
and would no longer be able to be the Angband maintainer.  This induced
some amount of uproar in the Angband community (as represented by the
Angband newsgroup), with various people attempting to form "committees"
to take over the maintenance of Angband.  Since committees have never
given us anything but trouble (think "COBOL"), there was very little
resistance when, on the first day of 1995, I made my code available,
calling it "Angband 2.7.0", and by default, taking over as the new
maintainer of Angband.  Or, at least, that is how I remember it...

Angband 2.7.0 was a very clean (but very buggy) rewrite that, among other
things, allowed extremely simple porting to multiple platforms, starting
with Unix and Macintosh, and by the time most of the bugs were cleaned up,
in Angband 2.7.2, including X11, and various IBM machines.  Angband 2.7.4
was released to the "ftp.cis.ksu.edu" site, and quickly gained acceptance,
perhaps helped by the OS2 and Windows and Amiga and Linux ports.  Angband
2.7.5 and 2.7.6 added important capabilities such as macros and user pref
files, and continued to clean up the source.  Angband 2.7.8 was released
to the major ftp archives as the first "stable" version in a year or so,
with new "help files" and "spoiler files" for the "online help", plus a
variety of minor tweaks and some new features.

After Angband 2.7.8 was released, I created a web site to keep track of
all the changes made in each version (though a few may have been missed),
and acquired the use of a new develoepement ftp server to supplement the
official "mirror" server.  This web site is now permanently located at
the Official Angband Home Page (http://thangorodrim.angband.org/).
Unfortunately, the next six versions were numbered Angband 2.7.9v1 to
Angband 2.7.9v6, but really each were rather major updates.  Angband 2.8.0
and 2.8.1 were released using a more normal version scheme.  Angband 2.8.2
and 2.8.3 add a few random features, clean up some code, and provide
graphics support and such for a few more platforms.

After the release of Angband 2.8.3 Ben's free time was more and more
occupied by his work.  He released a beta version of Angband 2.8.5,
introducing many new features, but couldn't give as much attention to
maintaining the game as he wanted to.

So in March 2000, I (Robert Ruehlmann) offered to take over Angband and
started to fix the remaining bugs in the Angband 2.8.5 beta.  The
resulting version has now been released as Angband 2.9.0.

The Official Angband Home Page ("http://thangorodrim.angband.org/") serves
not only as the most up to date description of Angband, but also lists
changes made between versions, and changes planned for upcoming versions,
and lists various email addresses and web sites related to Angband.

=== Some of the changes between Angband 2.6.1 and Angband 2.7.8 ===

It is very hard to pin down, along the way from 2.6.2 to 2.7.8, exactly
what changes were made, and exactly when they were made.  Most releases
involved so many changes from the previous release as to make "diff files"
not very useful, since often the diff files are as long as the code itself.
Most of the changes, with the notable exception of the creation of some of
the new "main-xxx.c" files for the various new platforms, and a few other
minor exceptions generally noted directly in comments in the source, were
written by myself, either spontaneously, or, more commonly, as the result
of a suggestion or comment by an Angband player.

The most important modification was a massive "code level cleanup" that made
all of my other modifications much simpler and safer.  This cleanup was so
massive that in many places the code is no longer recognizable, for example,
via "diff -r", often because it was rewritten from scratch.

The second most important modification was the design of a generic "z-term.c"
package, which allows Angband to be ported to a new machine with as few as 50
lines of code.  Angband 2.7.8 thus runs without modification on many machines,
including Macintosh, PowerMac, Unix/X11, Unix/Curses, Amiga, Windows, OS2-386,
DOS-386, and even DOS-286.

It would be difficult to list all of the changes between Angband 2.6.1 and
Angband 2.7.8, because many of them were made in passing during the massive
code level cleanup.  Many of the changes are invisible to the user, but still
provide increased simplicity and efficiency, and decreased code size, or make
other more visable changes possible.  For example, the new "project()" code
that handles all bolts, beams, and balls, the new "update_view()" code that
simplifies line of sight computation, or the new "generate()" code that builds
new levels in the dungeon.  Many changes have been made to increase efficiency,
including the new "process_monsters()" and "update_monsters()" functions, and
the new "objdes()" and "lite_spot()" routines.  The generic "z-term.c" package
yielded efficient screen updates, and enabled the efficient use of "color".

But anyway, here are a few things that come to mind, in no particular order,
and with very little time or effort.  Somehow I managed to put off updating
this file to the very end, and it will just have to do for now.  The recent
changes (and bug fixes) can be found at the Official Angband Home Page.

    color
    macros
    keymaps
    user pref files
    generic feature array, with template file
    generic object array, with template file
    generic artifact array, with template file
    generic ego-item array, with template file
    generic monster array, with template fils
    generic vault array, with template file
    binary image files for the template files
    special stat effect tables
    a special table of spells
    a special table of options
    inventory tagging
    inventory restrictions
    using objects off the floor
    various new runtime options
    the new "destroy" command
    the new "examine" command
    the new "note" command
    the new "dump screen" command
    the new "load screen" command
    the new "un-inscribe" command
    the new "change visuals" command
    the new "change colors" command
    the new "change macros" command
    the new "save game" command
    the new "fire" vs "throw" commands
    rearranged equipment slots
    a standard bow slot
    an extra inventory slot
    an underlying keyset
    refueling torches
    better monster memory
    nicer targetting mode
    object stacking
    the recall window
    the choice window
    the mirror window
    new high score code
    special lighting effects
    intelligent monsters
    new monster flags
    text formatting code
    much cleaner store code
    generic spell projections
    scrolls of *identify*
    maximize mode
    preserve mode
    new inscription code
    new message recall code
    new spell and prayer code
    massive cleanup of effects code
    new object allocation routines
    powerful (but simple) on line help
    robust savefile cheat preventers
    new official cheating options
    new blindness code
    new hallucination code
    optimized object description code
    new keypress input routines
    actual object discounts
    fractional (assymptotic) speed
    postponing updates/redraws
    run-time price determination
    better wizard commands
    the automatic player
    launchers of extra shots
    elemental ignore flags
    new ego-item types
    new player ghost creation
    no more sliding objects
    no more sliding monsters
    new object flags
    new chest trap code
    regularized the artifact code
    regularized the ego-item code
    new monster abilities
    new monster spell attacks
    some new store owners
    run-time skill computation
    player kills vs anscestor kills
    better room illumination code
    better group monster code
    table access through pointers
    more redefinable constants
    slightly new screen layout
    extreme code cleaning
    extreme optimizations


=== A Posting from the Original Author ===

From: [e-mail] (Robert Alan Koeneke)
Newsgroups: rec.games.roguelike.angband,rec.games.roguelike.moria
Subject: Early history of Moria
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 1996 04:20:51 GMT

I had some email show up asking about the origin of Moria, and its
relation to Rogue.  So I thought I would just post some text on the
early days of Moria.

First of all, yes, I really am the Robert Koeneke who wrote the first
Moria.  I had a lot of mail accussing me of pulling their leg and
such.  I just recently connected to Internet (yes, I work for a
company in the dark ages where Internet is concerned) and
was real surprised to find Moria in the news groups...  Angband was an
even bigger surprise, since I have never seen it.  I probably spoke to
its originator though...  I have given permission to lots of people
through the years to enhance, modify, or whatever as long as they
freely distributed the results.  I have always been a proponent of
sharing games, not selling them.

Anyway...

Around 1980 or 81 I was enrolled in engineering courses at the
University of Oklahoma.  The engineering lab ran on a PDP 1170 under
an early version of UNIX.  I was always good at computers, so it was
natural for me to get to know the system administrators.  They invited
me one night to stay and play some games, an early startrek game, The
Colossal Cave Adventure (later just 'Adventure'), and late one night,
a new dungeon game called 'Rogue'.

So yes, I was exposed to Rogue before Moria was even a gleam in my
eye.  In fact, Rogue was directly responsible for millions of hours of
play time wasted on Moria and its descendents...

Soon after playing Rogue (and man, was I HOOKED), I got a job in a
different department as a student assistant in computers.  I worked on
one of the early VAX 11/780's running VMS, and no games were available
for it at that time.  The engineering lab got a real geek of an
administrator who thought the only purpose of a computer was WORK!
Imagine...  Soooo, no more games, and no more rogue!

This was intolerable!  So I decided to write my own rogue game, Moria
Beta 1.0.  I had three languages available on my VMS system.  Fortran
IV, PASCAL V1.?, and BASIC.  Since most of the game was string
manipulation, I wrote the first attempt at Moria in VMS BASIC, and it
looked a LOT like Rogue, at least what I could remember of it.  Then I
began getting ideas of how to improve it, how it should work
differently, and I pretty much didn't touch it for about a year.

Around 1983, two things happened that caused Moria to be born in its
recognizable form.  I was engaged to be married, and the only cure for
THAT is to work so hard you can't think about it; and I was enrolled
for fall to take an operating systems class in PASCAL.

So, I investigated the new version of VMS PASCAL and found out it had
a new feature.  Variable length strings!  Wow...

That summer I finished Moria 1.0 in VMS PASCAL.  I learned more about
data structures, optimization, and just plain programming that summer
then in all of my years in school.  I soon drew a crowd of devoted
Moria players...  All at OU.

I asked Jimmey Todd, a good friend of mine, to write a better
character generator for the game, and so the skills and history were
born.  Jimmey helped out on many of the functions in the game as well.
This would have been about Moria 2.0

In the following two years, I listened a lot to my players and kept
making enhancements to the game to fix problems, to challenge them,
and to keep them going.  If anyone managed to win, I immediately found
out how, and 'enhanced' the game to make it harder.  I once vowed it
was 'unbeatable', and a week later a friend of mine beat it!  His
character, 'Iggy', was placed into the game as 'The Evil Iggy', and
immortalized...  And of course, I went in and plugged up the trick he
used to win...

Around 1985 I started sending out source to other universities.  Just
before a OU / Texas football clash, I was asked to send a copy to the
Univeristy of Texas...  I couldn't resist...  I modified it so that
the begger on the town level was 'An OU football fan' and they moved
at maximum rate.  They also multiplied at maximum rate...  So the
first step you took and woke one up, it crossed the floor increasing
to hundreds of them and pounded you into oblivion...  I soon received
a call and provided instructions on how to 'de-enhance' the game!

Around 1986 - 87 I released Moria 4.7, my last official release.  I
was working on a Moria 5.0 when I left OU to go to work for American
Airlines (and yes, I still work there).  Moria 5.0 was a complete
rewrite, and contained many neat enhancements, features, you name it.
It had water, streams, lakes, pools, with water monsters.  It had
'mysterious orbs' which could be carried like torches for light but
also gave off magical aura's (like protection from fire, or aggrivate
monster...).  It had new weapons and treasures...  I left it with the
student assistants at OU to be finished, but I guess it soon died on
the vine.  As far as I know, that source was lost...

I gave permission to anyone who asked to work on the game.  Several
people asked if they could convert it to 'C', and I said fine as long
as a complete credit history was maintained, and that it could NEVER
be sold, only given.  So I guess one or more of them succeeded in
their efforts to rewrite it in 'C'.

I have since received thousands of letters from all over the world
from players telling about their exploits, and from administrators
cursing the day I was born...  I received mail from behind the iron
curtain (while it was still standing) talking about the game on VAX's
(which supposedly couldn't be there due to export laws).  I used to
have a map with pins for every letter I received, but I gave up on
that!

I am very happy to learn my creation keeps on going...  I plan to
download it and Angband and play them...  Maybe something has been
added that will surprise me!  That would be nice...  I never got to
play Moria and be surprised...

Robert Alan Koeneke
[e-mail]


=== Previous Versions (outdated) ===


                          VMS Moria Version 4.8
Version 0.1  : 03/25/83
Version 1.0  : 05/01/84
Version 2.0  : 07/10/84
Version 3.0  : 11/20/84
Version 4.0  : 01/20/85

Modules :
     V1.0  Dungeon Generator      - RAK
           Character Generator    - RAK & JWT
           Moria Module           - RAK
           Miscellaneous          - RAK & JWT
     V2.0  Town Level & Misc      - RAK
     V3.0  Internal Help & Misc   - RAK
     V4.0  Source Release Version - RAK

Robert Alan Koeneke               Jimmey Wayne Todd Jr.
Student/University of Oklahoma    Student/University of Oklahoma





                        Umoria Version 5.2 (formerly UNIX Moria)
Version 4.83 :  5/14/87
Version 4.85 : 10/26/87
Version 4.87 :  5/27/88
Version 5.0  :  11/2/89
Version 5.2  :   5/9/90

James E. Wilson, U.C. Berkeley
                 [e-mail]
                 ...!ucbvax!ucbernie!wilson

Other contributors:
D. G. Kneller         - MSDOS Moria port
Christopher J. Stuart - recall, options, inventory, and running code
Curtis McCauley       - Macintosh Moria port
Stephen A. Jacobs     - Atari ST Moria port
William Setzer        - object naming code
David J. Grabiner     - numerous bug reports, and consistency checking
Dan Bernstein         - UNIX hangup signal fix, many bug fixes
and many others...




Copyright (c) 1989 James E. Wilson, Robert A. Keoneke
  This software may be copied and distributed for educational, research, and
  not for profit purposes provided that this copyright and statement are
  included in all such copies.

Umoria Version 5.2, patch level 1

Angband Version 2.0   Alex Cutler, Andy Astrand, Sean Marsh, Geoff Hill,
                      Charles Teague.

Angband Version 2.4   : 05/09/93

Angband Version 2.5   : 12/05/93 Charles Swiger

Angband Version 2.6   : 09/04/94 Charles Swiger

Angband Version 2.7   : 01/01/95  Ben Harrison

Angband Version 2.8   : 01/01/97  Ben Harrison



Copyright (c) 1997 Ben Harrison, James E. Wilson, Robert A. Koeneke

This software may be copied and distributed for educational, research,
and not for profit purposes provided that this copyright and statement
are included in all such copies.  Other copyrights may also apply.


All changes made by Ben Harrison and Robert Ruehlmann are also available
under the GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE.  Note that this doesn't influence
the current distribution, since parts of the source are still only
available under the old Moria/Angband license.  Until all parts of
Angband are distributed under the GPL the only valid license remains
the original Moria/Angband license.


=== Contributors (incomplete) ===

Peter Berger, "Prfnoff", Arcum Dagsson, Ed Cogburn, Matthias Kurzke,
Ben Harrison, Steven Fuerst, Julian Lighton, Andrew Hill, Werner Baer,
Tom Morton, "Cyric the Mad", Chris Kern, Tim Baker, Jurriaan Kalkman,
Alexander Wilkins, Mauro Scarpa, John I'anson-Holton, "facade",
Dennis van Es, Kenneth A. Strom, Wei-Hwa Huang, Nikodemus, Timo Pietilä,
Greg Wooledge, Keldon Jones, Shayne Steele, Dr. Andrew White, Musus Umbra