NetHack 1.3d

Hack, stitched together over the net · the first public NetHack

Date of birthJuly 1987 posted to comp.sources.games

CreatorsMike Stephenson with Arromdee, Turner, Neiger, Backus

LanguageC ~32,000 lines in 101 files

PlatformUnix + MS-DOS BSD, System V, PC

Lineage

NetHack is built on the code of Hack. Its README calls it “an integrated version of two major flavors of Hack”: Andries Brouwer's Unix Hack 1.0.3 and Don Kneller's PC Hack. Mike Stephenson merged the two, took the file names from PC Hack, and folded in patches that other players had posted: new classes, fountains, Keystone Kops, spiders, a magic marker. Each addition is still a switch in config.h.

1.3d was the first public release. Later versions (2.x, 3.x) grew from it, and so did the many variants in the family tree. This page's game is “NetHack 1.3d Revived”, a 2007 patch set that makes the 1987 source build on modern Linux.

Credits

Mike Stephenson	Merged the Hack flavours into NetHack; new classes and traps, throne rooms, spellbooks and spellcasting, praying, endgame changes
Ken Arromdee	New classes, weapons code, armour weights, tools, polymorphing yourself
Scott R. Turner	Rock moles, Keystone Kops, squeaky boards and magic traps, fountains
Gil Neiger	Magic marker, fountain improvements
Eric Backus	`#dip` for fountains
Jay Fenlason, Andries Brouwer, Don Kneller	Hack, Hack 1.0.3 and PC Hack, the code underneath
NetHack 1.3d Revived (2007), bhaak	Patches that make it build on modern Linux; GitHub copy (bhaak/NetHack-1.3d @ bcec982)
DragonDePlatino, DawnBringer	DawnLike tiles (CC-BY 4.0); the NetHack 3.6 tiles are the alternative

Screenshots

Four rooms joined by corridors, a Cave-man and his dog — First steps: a Cave-man and his little dog on level 1, rooms found by auto-explore.

More screenshots to come: our capture tool does not yet record the text windows.

Trivia

1.3d is the first public release of NetHack; Stephenson approved the posting to comp.sources.games in July 1987. (NetHackWiki)
The “Net” is for the Internet, over which the DevTeam worked together. (Wikipedia)
Spells, fountains, thrones and turning yourself into a monster all appear here for the first time. (NetHackWiki)
Excalibur is already here: name a long sword and dip it into a fountain. (NetHackWiki)
The revived edition's README says it came out in 2007, 20 years after 1.3d, for players who remember “when leprechaun were big L”. (README.revived)

What's unique

Twelve classes instead of Hack's six: Samurai, Ninja, Priest, Valkyrie, Elf and Healer join the Archeologist, Tourist, Fighter, Knight, Cave-man and Wizard.
Spellbooks and prayer. Magic is no longer only in items: learn spells from books, spend energy to cast them, and pray to your god when in trouble.
Fountains and thrones. Quaff from, dip into or sit on them, with random good and bad results.
Keystone Kops chase you out of a shop you robbed, and throw cream pies.
“The wizard may not stay dead!”, says the README: the Wizard of Yendor comes back.

Code dive

Language: K&R C, about 32,000 lines in 101 .c/.h files. Files are named in the short PC Hack style: shk.c, dog.c, fountain.c, pray.c.
Feature switches: every contributor's addition sits behind a #define in config.h (SPELLS, PRAYERS, KAA, KOPS, FOUNTAINS, …). The tool makedefs reads objects.h and writes the item defines, honouring those #ifdefs.
Environment: 4.xBSD and System V Unix on termcap terminals, and MS-DOS with an optional IBM graphics mode. The README's author built it on a Pyramid 98xe.
This port: the game's escape codes run through a small VT100 emulator; the map is drawn as tiles in X11 and in the browser (WebAssembly). WebAssembly needed real prototypes for the old K&R functions, and we fixed a missing argument in the “You give … gold” message on the way. Source: memmaker/nethack13d.

Stats

Thing	Count	Notable ones
Classes	12	The Samurai and Ninja; the Elf is a class, not a race.
Monsters	62	The Keystone Kop, the quantum mechanic, the rock mole, the giant eel, the mail daemon and the wizard of Yendor.
Spells	33	Finger of death, create familiar, genocide, cone of cold.
Potions	19	Gain energy, hallucination, holy water.
Scrolls	21	Genocide, punishment, amnesia, fire.
Rings	19	Conflict, teleport control, increase damage, warning.
Wands	20	Wishing, probing, cold, sleep, death.
Weapons	41	Katana, shuriken, a whole rack of polearms (bec de corbin, lucern hammer, voulge); Excalibur is the one artifact.
Armour	15	Elfin chain mail, crystal plate mail, bronze plate mail.
Tools	9	Magic marker, stethoscope, ice box, leash.
Traps	16	Squeaky board, magic trap, web, rust trap.
Levels	40	The Amulet of Yendor is in a maze from level 30 on; throne rooms from level 5, swamps from 19.

Manual

The manual page shipped with the source, nethack(6) (troff text), and the in-game introduction, help (text). From the NetHack 1.3d source, which builds on Hack © Stichting Mathematisch Centrum, 1985.

Getting started

Open the game, type a name and answer n to choose a class (Samurai or Valkyrie is easiest), or y to get a random one.
Move with hjklyubn or the arrow keys; walk into a monster to attack. _ explores on its own.
Press Enter for a menu of every command, i for the inventory.
Stuck in a dead end? Search with s (or 20s). Press > to walk to the down stairs and take them.
Eat when you are “Hungry”. The full key list is in the in-game guide.

Help

We found no walkthrough for 1.3d. Rules of thumb:

Never hit a floating eye in melee. Never eat a cockatrice corpse.
Engrave Elbereth in the dust when cornered: most monsters won't step onto it.
Pray when your hit points are very low, but not often.
Don't steal from shops: the Keystone Kops come.
More: NetHackWiki on NetHack 1.3d.

Cheats

Wizard mode (nethack -D, for the user named in config.h) exists in the source but can't be reached in the browser: the page doesn't pass -D.
Excalibur: name a long sword “Excalibur” and #dip it into a fountain.
Save scumming works in the browser: Export save before something risky, Import save if it goes wrong.