2 Using and Installing Amiga NetHack 3.4
3 (or Everything You Never Wanted to Know Before NetHacking)
4 (or Not Everything That Happens Always Comes Knocking)
6 Last Revision: 28 March 2000 for NetHack 3.4.1
9 0. Pre-intro for NetHack 3.4.1:
10 Amiga-specific changes for 3.4.1:
11 Most (around 99%) known bugs fixed (volunteers welcome).
12 HackWB and HackCli are no longer supported. Use the main binary.
14 We would like to thank each and every one of the people who took
15 the time and effort to report bugs to us. THANK YOU!
20 Welcome to Amiga NetHack! If this is your first visit to our fair
21 city, you are in for an amazing but dangerous journey; if you have
22 visited us before, beware! the city has changed in many strange and
23 subtle ways; it has also grown quite a bit. This missive brings to
24 light those mundane tasks which must be dealt with before beginning
25 your journey; for those of you who are faced with the task of
26 installing the pre-fabricated version of our town, section III
27 (Installing Amiga NetHack 3.6) will guide you through the task at
28 hand. If you are ready to visit, the local visitors guide is in
29 section II (Using Amiga NetHack 3.6); please also see the general
30 guide packaged separately (the file "GuideBook").
32 To all our visitors, a hearty Welcome! - and please be careful.
34 [Those responsible for the previous paragraphs have been sacked. The
35 documentation has been completed at great expense in a more traditional
36 style. -- The Management]
39 If you have questions about strategy, weapons, or monsters, the best
40 place to go for help is the Usenet newsgroup rec.games.roguelike.nethack.
42 If you have problems with installation or think you have found a bug
43 in the game, please report it by electronic mail to the development
44 team at nethack-bugs@nethack.org, where it will be routed to the
45 appropriate person. Include your configuration, the version of
46 NetHack you are playing (use the 'v' command), whether or not you are
47 using an official binary release (and if so which one) and as much
48 specific information as possible. As NetHack runs on many different
49 machines, be sure to mention that you are playing the Amiga version.
52 Olaf Seibert first ported NetHack 2.3 and 3.0 to the Amiga. Richard
53 Addison, Andrew Church, Jochen Erwied, Mark Gooderum, Ken Lorber,
54 Greg Olson, Mike Passaretti, and Gregg Wonderly polished and extended
55 the 3.0 and 3.1 ports. Andrew Church, Ken Lorber, and Gregg Wonderly
56 are responsible for the 3.2 port. Janne Salmijärvi resurrected the
57 amigaport for 3.3 and Teemu Suikki joined before 3.4.0.
59 II. Using Amiga NetHack 3.4
60 Run NetHack from the shell or from some tool that allows that,
61 ie. ToolManager. See the NetHack.txt file for command line options
64 II.A. Sources of Information
65 Where to go depends on what you want to find out. If you want to find
66 out about distributing NetHack, read the license (in NetHack:license
67 or type ?i during the game). For an introduction to NetHack, read
68 the GuideBook file. To find out what options are compiled into your
69 copy of NetHack, type #v during the game. Finally, for information
70 during the game on all kinds of things, type ? and select from the
71 menu or by pressing Help key.
73 II.B. The Amiga NetHack WorkBench Front End
74 Starting from 3.3.0 HackWB is not supported.
76 II.C. The Amiga NetHack CLI Front End
77 Starting from 3.3.0 CLI Front end is not supported either.
79 Instead, use the main binary. See NetHack.txt file for the standard Unix
80 flags for NetHack. In addition to those flags, Amiga NetHack accepts
81 the flags -l to force non-interlaced mode and -L to force interlaced mode.
83 II.D. Amiga-Specific Information for NetHack
85 There are several options that are unique to the Amiga version of
86 NetHack that may be specified in the NetHack.cnf file or on an
89 altmeta allows the ALT keys to function as META keys. The default
91 flush flush discards all characters in the queue except the first,
92 which limits typeahead accidents. The default is !flush.
93 silent turn off the audio output. The default is silent.
95 The current version of Amiga NetHack also supports menu accelerators.
96 See Guidebook.txt for a detailed description. Also supported is
97 selecting the number of stacked objects to drop, used with the (D)rop
98 command. Type the number and then select an item (or items with
99 accelerators). Items with a count associated with them are denoted
100 with # in place of -. I.e. 'd - 3 blessed daggers' becomes
101 'd # 3 blessed daggers'. You can clear the count by hitting esc
102 while counting or deselect and reselect the item. The default
103 is to drop all selected items (as before).
105 For other options how to configure the screen setting and colors refer
108 III. Installing Amiga NetHack 3.4
110 III.A. General Installation
111 Installation should be easy - basically it consists of putting files
112 where they belong and adding an assign to your startup. If you are
113 installing from the official binary distribution, simply unpacking
114 the archive in the appropriate directory will put the files in the
117 IF YOU ALREADY HAVE A PREVIOUS VERSION INSTALLED YOU MUST DELETE THE
118 OLD SAVE AND BONES FILES - THEY WILL NOT WORK! This includes save
119 and bones files from all previous versions of NetHack (yes, even 3.3.1).
120 If you have a game in progress and want to finish it, use your
121 current version and then update.
123 Will NetHack fit on your machine?
124 NetHack 3.6 is large. NetHack 3.4 is very large. You will need:
125 > Any standard series Amiga: 500, 600, 1000, 1200, 2000, 2500, 3000, 4000.
126 > WorkBench 2.04 or later.
127 > At least 3 meg of RAM. NetHack will NOT run in 1 meg (probably even 2).
128 > Mass storage: A hard drive with over 3 meg of free space is highly
131 Hard Disk Installation:
132 Unpack the archive to your place of choice. Since you are reading this
133 you've probably done that already. Now just assign NetHack: to
134 NetHack directory containing the executable and datafiles and other needed
137 Use the table in the next section to see where things should end up.
138 Be sure that the file 8 ends up in NetHack:hack/8.
141 Using your favorite text editor, edit NetHack:NetHack.cnf to match
144 Create the save file directory (makedir NetHack:save) and the levels file
145 directory (makedir NetHack:levels), if they don't already exist.
147 Create the score file (echo to NetHack:record) and, if desired, the log
148 file (echo to NetHack:logfile), if they don't already exist. You may
149 leave out logfile, but record is needed.
151 III.B. File Location Table
153 amii.hlp Guidebook.txt hack.font
154 license NetHack NetHack.cnf
155 NetHack.txt nhdat nhsdat
156 record Recover Recover.txt
157 logfile (optional, but useful)
161 monsters.iff objects.iff other.iff
165 [Since HackCli and split binary is no longer supported the following
166 probably doesn't apply anymore. Due to lack of a suitable environment
167 it is also untested.]
169 The BBS mode is based on the standard NetHack tty port and is designed
170 for use in a BBS setting - it is specifically not recommended for use
171 on the console. The current TTY mode has changed significantly since
172 the preliminary version released with 3.1.2. In particular, BBS mode
173 now works with split binaries (only), and now supports multiple games
174 in progress at the same time for multi-line boards (note however that
175 any individual user should not be allowed to run two instances of
176 NetHack at the same time).
178 To set up NetHack for use with a BBS, set OPTIONS=windowtype:tty
179 and unset DUNGEONS, TRAPS, and EFFECTS in NetHack.cnf. Configure
180 the BBS to expect I/O through stdin and stdout, and have NetHack
182 HackCLI :uid -u uname options...
183 where uid is any string (without embedded spaces, colons, or slashes)
184 that is unique for each BBS user and uname is some corresponding human-
185 readable name for that user. Uid is used in constructing file names
186 to prevent collisions between simultaneous games and to prevent
187 people from using other people's save files. Uname is the name the
188 character will have in the game and the name that will appear in the
191 The terminal is assumed to be a 24x80 ANSI-compatible terminal.
192 The present version does not deal with situations such as low
193 memory gracefully - as NetHack uses a considerable amount of
194 memory this is particularly painful with multiple games in
195 progress. Sysops are reminded to be familiar with the recover
196 utility, which may be needed from time to time and which should
197 probably not be available directly to users. Bug reports and
198 suggestions for improvements are requested from the user community -
199 this is still considered alpha software.