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README.NT
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1993-07-20
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NetHack is Copyright (C) Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, Amsterdam.
NetHack may be freely redistributed. See license for details.
Installing NetHack 3.1.3 for NT
================================
(last revision: 1993 July 20)
Intel Binary - Windows NT
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hello ..., welcome to NetHack!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This Version 3.1, patchlevel 3, official binary distribution
of NT NetHack 3.1 runs on Intel '386 or greater PC's running
Windows NT (March Beta or later).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
How to set up the game:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
In order to install this version of NetHack, you will need an Intel
based PC running Windows NT (this version will not work under WIN32s
under Windows 3.1).
It uses approximately 1.8M of free disk space.
The most straightforward method of setting up the game is to put
all of the NetHack files into a single directory on one of your
NT hard disks (C:\GAMES\NETHACK would be a typical choice).
Adding NetHack as ICON:
Be certain that you are in the program group where you
want the NetHack ICON to appear ("Games" for example).
Select (F)ile (N)ew from the program manager pull down
menus.
Click the "Program Item" choice.
Specify "NetHack 3.1.3" as the Description.
Specify "C:\GAMES\NETHACK\NETHACK.EXE" as the Command Line (or
whatever directory you copied the files into).
Specify "C:\GAMES\NETHACK" as the Startup Directory (or
whatever directory you copied the files into).
Click on "OK".
The NetHack ICON should appear in the current group.
Double-clicking this ICON will start the game.
Command Line Starting:
Whenever you are in the directory where you copied
the files, you can then run NETHACK. If you add
this directory to your PATH and have defined the
environment variable HACKDIR to point to the
directory, you will not even have to CD first.
NETHACK.CNF configuration file:
At this point you should have a
playable game, but you might want to poke around
in NETHACK.CNF with a text editor to set up both
pragmatic things (like where to store saved games)
and Fun Stuff like the name of your character and
your cat.
With luck the comments in NETHACK.CNF should be adequate to
figuring out how things work.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Contacts:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
If you have problems with this package, or in general with NetHack on
Windows NT, or the NetHack game itself, you can try sending a report via:
nethack-bugs@linc.cis.upenn.edu
or on Compuserve,
>INTERNET:nethack-bugs@linc.cis.upenn.edu
Please mention that you are using:
The 'official' NH 3.1.3 Intel binary for Windows NT
as well as the EXACT error message and diagnostic code.
You might include a copy of the file "OPTIONS" in your NetHack directory
as well.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frequently asked questions:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
You asked:
Wow this is a really neat game. Is there any way to explore it
without dying so much?
Our staff schizophrenic replies:
Gentle Reader, I fear this is a most delicate question. It is a
frequent theme in fantasy literature that it is far easier to be
granted a wish than it is to decide upon a good wish to make. But I
am no djinn, and I am willing to advise you on this point as well.
And so I shall make the observation that, no matter what transpires,
you will always die the same amount, viz: once. Perhaps what you want
is a way to avoid dying so soon?
As it happens, this latter can be accomplished. Death, as it
transpires, is characterisable as _finitely avoidable_ in NetHack, for
there is a Mystic Prompt known to those who have read the Man Page of
Doom, the words of which, it is sometimes whispered, are as follows:
Die? [yn]
The benefit of being asked this question at the, shall we say,
appropriate, crucial moments is available -- for a price.
Classically, an acceptable consideration would be the player's soul;
but since according to the hallowed doctrines of most major religions,
@-signs don't have souls to sell, we will be contented with your
score.... For lo! The game contains an X command, and by the
strangely inexplicable power of the elder gods this X standeth for the
word Discover (or EXplore, in the ancient tongue), and the typing of
this Mystic Device shall effect the deal as described above,
paragraphs 2 and 3.
Furthermore, and alternately, IF YOU ORDER IMMEDIATELY at the
outset of a game, AS AN ADDED FREE BONUS YOU WILL RECEIVE A GENUINE
HAND-CRAFTED WAND OF THREE WISHES! Just type NETHACK -X on the
command line and, since NetHack is freely distributable, SEND NO MONEY
NOW. As a variation on this theme, the -D flag will put the game into
its debugging mode, IF you are a wizard... "Speak, wizard, and enter",
to paraphrase the Old Master.
You asked:
Ok the game works. Where do I begin to learn how to play?
A passing strange person replies:
Of course it works. What do you think I am, a radio?
Once you've got into the game, some good commands to try (and
they don't even count as moves!) are ? and /. At risk of sounding
like marketing blurb, the HELP key (which on your terminal will be
marked with a question mark - and be warned that you may have to
depress the shift key to activate this function!) gives you instant
access to our online help facility. It's kind of a menu with lovely
options like "c" (where you get to see MY NAME in the history of
NetHack!), "i" (which gives you all the important legal blurb which
tells you about your rights and responsibilities as a NetHack
licensee), and the more boring items "a" and "b" which merely explain
all the commands and the display symbols and uninteresting stuff like
that. What the hell. It's there, you can use it.
The / key is pretty good, too. If there's something on the
screen that you don't know what it is, well, it's probably a letter or
a symbol or something. That's wisdom, see? But to get onto the
Eternal Verities, suppose you want to know what it MEANS? Aha! Hit
/, say "y", I want to specify it by cursor (cursors are blinking
underscores, and if you're British like me you can curse them with
your numeric bloody keypad, too -- Americans needn't understand this
joke), whatever it is, and then you can point out the object of your
confusion and have it explicated in frabjous detail. Helps you avoid
getting your face et, sometimes, that. Always nice, not having your
face et.
Oh, right, I almost forgot. There's the Guidebook, too, for
the quiche-eaters in our midst.... You may have got one with your
game (Guideboo.txt).
You asked:
I was playing along with my 400 hitpoint level 8 Barbarian
named Gorp and my dog Gumby, having a wonderful evening bashing
heads, eating eye corpses, and generally running amok in the dungeon
and all of a sudden the (1) the lights go out, (2) I hit the power
cord with my sword, (3) lightning struck, or (4) the game actually
crashed. Now what do I do?
Our resident disaster recovery expert replies:
WHAT? Damn, hmmm, lets see now. Where is the plan, you
know what I mean, the PLAN! Wait, now calm down, let me think.
Hmm. Hmm. Oh yea! You have INSURANCE don't you. I mean you
compiled the game with INSURANCE didn't you. Well then you are
in safe hands, so to speak. Included at no extra charge to you
is a smaller programme called recover.exe. Its sole purpose in
life is to save your behind in cases like this. Don't go
getting the idea that you can cheat by turning off your machine
just when you are about to die and using it to resurrect your
Wizard. The recover program can tell you are cheating and will
delete your high score list and give you bad luck for twenty
games.
To use it after a crash just go to your NETHACK directory and
check to see if you have a bunch of files ending in a number.
Like so: LEVELS.0 LEVELS.1 LEVELS.2 and so on. Now run the
recover programme giving it the name of your NETHACK directory
as well as the basename part for the level files.
Example you say:
recover -d \games\nethack levels
Works.
You asked:
Where can I converse with other people playing NetHack?
An eavesdropping Internet Guru replies:
You want to speak with others who have trodden into the
dungeons before you, so that you might learn some way to cheat
or learn some other unethical ways to survive, is that it? No?
I believe it not! But in the slim chance that you may indeed be
an honourable person, it is said that mystical rumours may be
picked up by leaning your ear towards rec.games.hack. Many
such rumours are false, but alas, many may indeed be true.
Good enough?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
DISCLAIMERS:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Throughout this document, the word "NetHack" refers to a rather jolly
game involving a small @-sign getting its face et by dragons, and is
in no way to be construed as relating to the theory or practise of
gaining unauthorised use of or access to data or data processing
equipment (except maybe if a few of us play the game at work,
something which I want to go on record as saying is very, very naughty
indeed and not the sort of thing you want to get involved with at
all), and if any security-establishment types are reading this,
remember it's YOU folks who do the cloak-and-dagger stuff, we're
responsible professionals with real jobs and self respect and stuff
like that.
Secondly, all references to animal sacrifice, Donny Osmond, dynamic
linking, Microsoft Corporation, okapi, claviprondrophony and so forth
are made purely for the entertainment of the reader and if you think
we meant something by it, that's your problem. Research has shown
that what people say and what they mean have so little to do with each
other that you can actually get PAID to figure out why people say,
"can you reach the salt?" when as a matter of fact they don't give a
pair of dingo's kidneys what the answer to the question is, so long as
someone provides them with some small white crystals in the near
future and look! you came up with *that* interpretation all by
yourself now didn't you.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Special thanks to stephen p spackman who wrote the original version
of this text for the PC version of NetHack and who will live forever
in our memories.(Nope, he isn't dead, just moved on to a higher calling).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
This document is Copyright (C) 1991 Stephen P Spackman and Kevin D
Smolkowski (1993). Necessary modifications specific to the Windows NT
environment were done by Michael Allison. It constitutes part of the
documentation of the Windows NT version of the NetHack game, and may be
distributed freely subject to the same terms set forth in the NetHack
license. Thank you for having a very nice day indeed.
Hack On!