1 NetHack History file for release 3.6
3 Behold, mortal, the origins of NetHack...
5 Jay Fenlason wrote the original Hack with help from Kenny Woodland,
6 Mike Thome, and Jon Payne.
8 Andries Brouwer did a major re-write, transforming Hack into a very different
9 game, and published (at least) three versions (1.0.1, 1.0.2, and 1.0.3) for
10 UNIX(tm) machines to the Usenet.
12 Don G. Kneller ported Hack 1.0.3 to Microsoft(tm) C and MS-DOS(tm), producing
13 PC HACK 1.01e, added support for DEC Rainbow graphics in version 1.03g, and
14 went on to produce at least four more versions (3.0, 3.2, 3.51, and 3.6;
15 note that these are old Hack version numbers, not contemporary NetHack ones).
17 R. Black ported PC HACK 3.51 to Lattice(tm) C and the Atari 520/1040ST,
18 producing ST Hack 1.03.
20 Mike Stephenson merged these various versions back together, incorporating
21 many of the added features, and produced NetHack version 1.4 in 1987. He
22 then coordinated a cast of thousands in enhancing and debugging NetHack 1.4
23 and released NetHack versions 2.2 and 2.3.
25 Later, Mike coordinated a major rewrite of the game, heading a team which
26 included Ken Arromdee, Jean-Christophe Collet, Steve Creps, Eric Hendrickson,
27 Izchak Miller, Eric S. Raymond, John Rupley, Mike Threepoint, and Janet Walz,
28 to produce NetHack 3.0c. The same group subsequently released ten patch-
29 level revisions and updates of 3.0.
31 NetHack 3.0 was ported to the Atari by Eric R. Smith, to OS/2 by Timo
32 Hakulinen, and to VMS by David Gentzel. The three of them and Kevin Darcy
33 later joined the main development team to produce subsequent revisions of
36 Olaf Seibert ported NetHack 2.3 and 3.0 to the Amiga. Norm Meluch, Stephen
37 Spackman and Pierre Martineau designed overlay code for PC NetHack 3.0.
38 Johnny Lee ported NetHack 3.0 to the Macintosh. Along with various other
39 Dungeoneers, they continued to enhance the PC, Macintosh, and Amiga ports
40 through the later revisions of 3.0.
42 Headed by Mike Stephenson and coordinated by Izchak Miller and Janet Walz,
43 the development team which now included Ken Arromdee, David Cohrs,
44 Jean-Christophe Collet, Kevin Darcy, Matt Day, Timo Hakulinen, Steve Linhart,
45 Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Eric Raymond, and Eric Smith undertook a radical
46 revision of 3.0. They re-structured the game's design, and re-wrote major
47 parts of the code. They added multiple dungeons, a new display, special
48 individual character quests, a new endgame and many other new features, and
51 Ken Lorber, Gregg Wonderly and Greg Olson, with help from Richard Addison,
52 Mike Passaretti, and Olaf Seibert, developed NetHack 3.1 for the Amiga.
54 Norm Meluch and Kevin Smolkowski, with help from Carl Schelin, Stephen
55 Spackman, Steve VanDevender, and Paul Winner, ported NetHack 3.1 to the PC.
57 Jon W{tte and Hao-yang Wang, with help from Ross Brown, Mike Engber, David
58 Hairston, Michael Hamel, Jonathan Handler, Johnny Lee, Tim Lennan, Rob Menke,
59 and Andy Swanson developed NetHack 3.1 for the Macintosh, porting it for
60 MPW. Building on their development, Barton House added a Think C port.
62 Timo Hakulinen ported NetHack 3.1 to OS/2. Eric Smith ported NetHack 3.1
63 to the Atari. Pat Rankin, with help from Joshua Delahunty, is responsible
64 for the VMS version of NetHack 3.1. Michael Allison ported NetHack 3.1 to
67 Dean Luick, with help from David Cohrs, developed NetHack 3.1 for X11.
68 Warwick Allison wrote a tiled version of NetHack for the Atari;
69 he later contributed the tiles to the DevTeam and tile support was
70 then added to other platforms.
72 The 3.2 development team, comprised of Michael Allison, Ken Arromdee, David
73 Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Steve Creps, Kevin Darcy, Timo Hakulinen, Steve
74 Linhart, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Eric Smith, Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and
75 Paul Winner, released version 3.2 in April of 1996.
77 Version 3.2 marked the tenth anniversary of the formation of the development
78 team. In a testament to their dedication to the game, all thirteen members
79 of the original development team remained on the team at the start of work
80 on that release. During the interval between the release of 3.1.3 and 3.2,
81 one of the founding members of the development team, Dr. Izchak Miller,
82 passed away. That release of the game was dedicated to him by the
83 development and porting teams.
85 Version 3.2 proved to be more stable than previous versions. Many bugs
86 were fixed, abuses eliminated, and game features tuned for better game
89 During the lifespan of NetHack 3.1 and 3.2, several enthusiasts of the game
90 added their own modifications to the game and made these "variants" publicly
93 Tom Proudfoot and Yuval Oren created NetHack++, which was quickly renamed
94 NetHack--. Working independently, Stephen White wrote NetHack Plus.
95 Tom Proudfoot later merged NetHack Plus and his own NetHack-- to produce
96 SLASH. Larry Stewart-Zerba and Warwick Allison improved the spellcasting
97 system with the Wizard Patch. Warwick Allison also ported NetHack to use
100 Warren Cheung combined SLASH with the Wizard Patch to produce Slash'em, and
101 with the help of Kevin Hugo, added more features. Kevin later joined the
102 DevTeam and incorporated the best of these ideas in NetHack 3.3.
104 The final update to 3.2 was the bug fix release 3.2.3, which was released
105 simultaneously with 3.3.0 in December 1999 just in time for the Year 2000.
107 The 3.3 development team, consisting of Michael Allison, Ken Arromdee,
108 David Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Steve Creps, Kevin Darcy, Timo Hakulinen,
109 Kevin Hugo, Steve Linhart, Ken Lorber, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Eric Smith,
110 Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and Paul Winner, released 3.3.0 in
111 December 1999 and 3.3.1 in August of 2000.
113 Version 3.3 offered many firsts. It was the first version to separate race
114 and profession. The Elf class was removed in preference to an elf race,
115 and the races of dwarves, gnomes, and orcs made their first appearance in
116 the game alongside the familiar human race. Monk and Ranger roles joined
117 Archeologists, Barbarians, Cavemen, Healers, Knights, Priests, Rogues,
118 Samurai, Tourists, Valkyries and of course, Wizards. It was also the first
119 version to allow you to ride a steed, and was the first version to have a
120 publicly available web-site listing all the bugs that had been discovered.
121 Despite that constantly growing bug list, 3.3 proved stable enough to last
122 for more than a year and a half.
124 The 3.4 development team initially consisted of Michael Allison, Ken Arromdee,
125 David Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Kevin Hugo, Ken Lorber, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin,
126 Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and Paul Winner, with Warwick Allison joining
127 just before the release of NetHack 3.4.0 in March 2002.
129 As with version 3.3, various people contributed to the game as a whole as
130 well as supporting ports on the different platforms that NetHack runs on:
132 Pat Rankin maintained 3.4 for VMS.
134 Michael Allison maintained NetHack 3.4 for the MS-DOS platform.
135 Paul Winner and Yitzhak Sapir provided encouragement.
137 Dean Luick, Mark Modrall, and Kevin Hugo maintained and enhanced the
138 Macintosh port of 3.4.
140 Michael Allison, David Cohrs, Alex Kompel, Dion Nicolaas, and Yitzhak Sapir
141 maintained and enhanced 3.4 for the Microsoft Windows platform. Alex Kompel
142 contributed a new graphical interface for the Windows port. Alex Kompel also
143 contributed a Windows CE port for 3.4.1.
145 Ron Van Iwaarden maintained 3.4 for OS/2.
147 Janne Salmijarvi and Teemu Suikki maintained and enhanced the
148 Amiga port of 3.5 after Janne Salmijarvi resurrected it for 3.3.1.
150 Christian `Marvin' Bressler maintained 3.5 for the Atari after he
151 resurrected it for 3.3.1.
153 The release of NetHack 3.4.3 in December 2003 marked the beginning of a
154 long release hiatus. 3.4.3 proved to be a remarkably stable version that
155 provided continued enjoyment by the community for more than a decade. The
156 devteam slowly and quietly continued to work on the game behind the scenes
157 during the tenure of 3.4.3. It was during that same period that several
158 new variants emerged within the NetHack community. Notably sporkhack by
159 Derek S. Ray, unnethack by Patric Mueller, nitrohack and its successors
160 originally by Daniel Thaler and then by Alex Smith, and
161 Dynahack by Tung Nguyen. Some of those variants continue to be developed,
162 maintained, and enjoyed by the community to this day.
164 In September 2014, an interim snapshot of the code under development was
165 released publicly by other parties. Since that code was a work-in-progress
166 and had not gone through a period of debugging, it was decided that the
167 version numbers present on that code snapshot would be retired and never
168 used in an official NetHack release. An announcement was posted on the
169 devteam's official nethack.org website to that effect, stating that there
170 would never be a 3.4.4, 3.5, or 3.5.0 official release version.
172 In January 2015, preparation began for the release of NetHack 3.6.
174 At the beginning of development for what would eventually get released
175 as 3.6.0, the development team consisted of Michael Allison,
176 Warwick Allison, Ken Arromdee, David Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Ken Lorber,
177 Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and Paul Winner.
178 Leading up to the release of 3.6.0 in early 2015, new members Sean Hunt,
179 Pasi Kallinen, and Derek S. Ray joined the NetHack development team.
181 In January 2015, preparation began for the release of NetHack 3.6. The 3.6
182 version merges work done by the development team since the previous release
183 with some of the beloved community patches. Many bugs were fixed and some
184 code was restructured.
186 The development team, as well as Steve VanDevender and Kevin Smolkowski
187 ensured that NetHack 3.6.0 continued to operate on various Unix flavors
188 as well as maintaining the X11 interface.
190 Ken Lorber, Haoyang Wang, Pat Rankin, and Dean Luick maintained the port
191 of NetHack 3.6.0 for Mac.
193 Michael Allison, Derek S. Ray, Yitzhak Sapir, Alex Kompel, Dion Nicolaas,
194 and David Cohrs maintained the port of NetHack 3.6.0 for Microsoft Windows.
196 Pat Rankin attempted to keep the VMS port running for NetHack 3.6.0,
197 hindered by limited access. Kevin Smolkowski has updated and tested it
198 for the most recent version of OpenVMS (V8.4 as of this writing) on Alpha
199 and Integrity (aka Itanium aka IA64) but not VAX.
201 This version of the game is special in a particular way. Near the end of
202 the development of 3.6, one of the significant inspirations for many of
203 the humorous and fun features found in the game, author Terry Pratchett,
204 passed away. This version of the game includes a tribute to him.
207 An official NetHack web site continues to be maintained by Ken Lorber at
208 http://www.nethack.org/.
213 The devteam would like to give a special "shout-out" to thank the generous
214 people primarily responsible for the public NetHack servers available for
215 playing the game at nethack.alt.org and devnull.net. In addition to
216 providing a way for the public to play a game of NetHack from almost
217 anywhere, they have hosted annual NetHack tournaments for many, many years.
219 On behalf of the NetHack community, thank you very much to
220 M. Drew Streib, Pasi Kallinen and Robin Bandy.
224 From time to time, some depraved individual out there in netland sends a
225 particularly intriguing modification to help out with the game. The Gods of
226 the Dungeon sometimes make note of the names of the worst of these miscreants
227 in this, the list of Dungeoneers:
229 Adam Aronow Janet Walz Nathan Eady
230 Alex Kompel Janne Salmijarvi Norm Meluch
231 Andreas Dorn Jean-Christophe Collet Olaf Seibert
232 Andy Church Jeff Bailey Pasi Kallinen
233 Andy Swanson Jochen Erwied Pat Rankin
234 Ari Huttunen John Kallen Paul Winner
235 Barton House John Rupley Pierre Martineau
236 Benson I. Margulies John S. Bien Ralf Brown
237 Bill Dyer Johnny Lee Ray Chason
238 Boudewijn Waijers Jon W{tte Richard Addison
239 Bruce Cox Jonathan Handler Richard Beigel
240 Bruce Holloway Joshua Delahunty Richard P. Hughey
241 Bruce Mewborne Keizo Yamamoto Rob Menke
242 Carl Schelin Ken Arnold Robin Bandy
243 Chris Russo Ken Arromdee Robin Johnson
244 David Cohrs Ken Lorber Roderick Schertler
245 David Damerell Ken Washikita Roland McGrath
246 David Gentzel Kevin Darcy Ron Van Iwaarden
247 David Hairston Kevin Hugo Ronnen Miller
248 Dean Luick Kevin Sitze Ross Brown
249 Del Lamb Kevin Smolkowski Sascha Wostmann
250 Derek S. Ray Kevin Sweet Scott Bigham
251 Deron Meranda Lars Huttar Scott R. Turner
252 Dion Nicolaas Leon Arnott Sean Hunt
253 Dylan O'Donnell M. Drew Streib Stephen Spackman
254 Eric Backus Malcolm Ryan Stefan Thielscher
255 Eric Hendrickson Mark Gooderum Stephen White
256 Eric R. Smith Mark Modrall Steve Creps
257 Eric S. Raymond Marvin Bressler Steve Linhart
258 Erik Andersen Matthew Day Steve VanDevender
259 Frederick Roeber Merlyn LeRoy Teemu Suikki
260 Gil Neiger Michael Allison Tim Lennan
261 Greg Laskin Michael Feir Timo Hakulinen
262 Greg Olson Michael Hamel Tom Almy
263 Gregg Wonderly Michael Sokolov Tom West
264 Hao-yang Wang Mike Engber Warren Cheung
265 Helge Hafting Mike Gallop Warwick Allison
266 Irina Rempt-Drijfhout Mike Passaretti Yitzhak Sapir
267 Izchak Miller Mike Stephenson
268 J. Ali Harlow Mikko Juola