NetHack History file for release 3.3

Behold, mortal, the origins of NetHack...

Jay Fenlason wrote the original Hack with help from Kenny Woodland,
Mike Thome, and Jon Payne.

Andries Brouwer did a major re-write, transforming Hack into a very different
game, and published (at least) three versions (1.0.1, 1.0.2, and 1.0.3) for
UNIX(tm) machines to the Usenet.

Don G. Kneller ported Hack 1.0.3 to Microsoft(tm) C and MS-DOS(tm), producing
PC HACK 1.01e, added support for DEC Rainbow graphics in version 1.03g, and
went on to produce at least four more versions (3.0, 3.2, 3.51, and 3.6).

R. Black ported PC HACK 3.51 to Lattice(tm) C and the Atari 520/1040ST,
producing ST Hack 1.03.

Mike Stephenson merged these various versions back together, incorporating
many of the added features, and produced NetHack version 1.4.  He then
coordinated a cast of thousands in enhancing and debugging NetHack 1.4 and
released NetHack versions 2.2 and 2.3.
 
Later, Mike coordinated a major rewrite of the game, heading a team which
included Ken Arromdee, Jean-Christophe Collet, Steve Creps, Eric Hendrickson,
Izchak Miller, Eric S. Raymond, John Rupley, Mike Threepoint, and Janet Walz,
to produce NetHack 3.0c.  The same group subsequently released ten patch-
level revisions and updates of 3.0.

NetHack 3.0 was ported to the Atari by Eric R. Smith, to OS/2 by Timo
Hakulinen, and to VMS by David Gentzel.  The three of them and Kevin Darcy
later joined the main development team to produce subsequent revisions of
3.0.

Olaf Seibert ported NetHack 2.3 and 3.0 to the Amiga.  Norm Meluch, Stephen
Spackman and Pierre Martineau designed overlay code for PC NetHack 3.0.
Johnny Lee ported NetHack 3.0 to the Macintosh.  Along with various other
Dungeoneers, they continued to enhance the PC, Macintosh, and Amiga ports
through the later revisions of 3.0.
 
Headed by Mike Stephenson and coordinated by Izchak Miller and Janet Walz,
the development team which now included Ken Arromdee, David Cohrs,
Jean-Christophe Collet, Kevin Darcy, Matt Day, Timo Hakulinen, Steve Linhart,
Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Eric Raymond, and Eric Smith undertook a radical
revision of 3.0.  They re-structured the game's design, and re-wrote major
parts of the code.  They added multiple dungeons, a new display, special
individual character quests, a new endgame and many other new features, and
produced NetHack 3.1.

Ken Lorber, Gregg Wonderly and Greg Olson, with help from Richard Addison,
Mike Passaretti, and Olaf Seibert, developed NetHack 3.1 for the Amiga.

Norm Meluch and Kevin Smolkowski, with help from Carl Schelin, Stephen
Spackman, Steve VanDevender, and Paul Winner, ported NetHack 3.1 to the PC.

Jon W{tte and Hao-yang Wang, with help from Ross Brown, Mike Engber, David
Hairston, Michael Hamel, Jonathan Handler, Johnny Lee, Tim Lennan, Rob Menke,
and Andy Swanson developed NetHack 3.1 for the Macintosh, porting it for
MPW.  Building on their development, Barton House added a Think C port.  

Timo Hakulinen ported NetHack 3.1 to OS/2.  Eric Smith ported NetHack 3.1
to the Atari.  Pat Rankin, with help from Joshua Delahunty, is responsible
for the VMS version of NetHack 3.1.  Michael Allison ported NetHack 3.1 to
Windows NT.

Dean Luick, with help from David Cohrs, developed NetHack 3.1 for X11.
Warwick Allison wrote a tiled version of NetHack for the Atari;
he later contributed the tiles to the DevTeam and tile support was
then added to other platforms.

The 3.2 development team, comprised of Michael Allison, Ken Arromdee, David
Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Steve Creps, Kevin Darcy, Timo Hakulinen, Steve
Linhart, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Eric Smith, Mike Stephenson, Janet Walz, and
Paul Winner, released version 3.2 in April of 1996.

Version 3.2 marked the tenth anniversary of the formation of the development
team.  In a testament to their dedication to the game, all thirteen members
of the original development team remained on the team at the start of work
on that release.  During the interval between the release of 3.1.3 and 3.2,
one of the founding members of the development team, Dr. Izchak Miller,
passed away.  That release of the game was dedicated to him by the
development and porting teams.

Version 3.2 proved to be more stable than previous versions.  Many bugs
were fixed, abuses eliminated, and game features tuned for better game
play.

During the lifespan of NetHack 3.1 and 3.2, several enthusiasts of the game
added their own modifications to the game and made these "variants" publicly
available:

Tom Proudfoot and Yuval Oren created NetHack++, which was quickly renamed
NetHack--.  Working independently, Stephen White wrote NetHack Plus.
Tom Proudfoot later merged NetHack Plus and his own NetHack-- to produce
SLASH.  Larry Stewart-Zerba and Warwick Allison improved the spellcasting
system with the Wizard Patch.  Warwick Allison also ported NetHack to use
the Qt interface.

Warren Cheung combined SLASH with the Wizard Patch to produce Slash'em, and
with the help of Kevin Hugo, added more features.  Kevin later joined the
DevTeam and incorporated the best of these ideas in NetHack 3.3.

In addition to the merged features, a number of other notable modifications
were made to the game:

The character's race was split from his/her/its role in life.  Although
started, this is preliminary and will likely be enhanced over the course
of the next few releases.  The elf, dwarf, orc, and gnome races currently
exist in the game.

Two new classes, or "roles", the Monk and Ranger have been added. As a result
of the Elf being split off as a race, the Elf class was removed from the game.

The 3.3 development team consisted of Michael Allison, Ken Arromdee,
David Cohrs, Jessie Collet, Steve Creps, Kevin Darcy, Timo Hakulinen,
Kevin Hugo, Steve Linhart, Dean Luick, Pat Rankin, Eric Smith, Mike
Stephenson, Janet Walz, and Paul Winner.

As with version 3.2, various people contributed to the game as a whole as
well as supporting ports on the different platforms that NetHack runs on:

Pat Rankin maintained 3.3 for VMS.

Michael Allison ported NetHack 3.3 for the MS-DOS platform.  Paul Winner
and Yitzhak Sapir provided encouragement.

Elvis was seen playing NetHack on an Amiga.  That is to say, like Elvis, it
it might come back, but don't hold your breath.

Dean Luick, Mark Modrall, and Kevin Hugo maintained and enhanced the
Macintosh port of 3.3.

The Atari port of NetHack was discontinued.

Michael Allison ported 3.3 for the Microsoft Windows NT platform.

Ron Van Iwaarden took over responsibility for the OS/2 port.
			   - - - - - - - - - -

From time to time, some depraved individual out there in netland sends a
particularly intriguing modification to help out with the game.  The Gods of
the Dungeon sometimes make note of the names of the worst of these miscreants
in this, the list of Dungeoneers:

    Adam Aronow               Helge Hafting             Mike Engber
    Andy Church               Irina Rempt-Drijfhout     Mike Gallop
    Andy Swanson              Izchak Miller             Mike Passaretti
    Ari Huttunen              Janet Walz                Mike Stephenson
    Barton House              Jean-Christophe Collet    Norm Meluch
    Benson I. Margulies       Jochen Erwied             Olaf Seibert
    Bill Dyer                 John Kallen               Pat Rankin
    Boudewijn Waijers         John Rupley               Paul Winner
    Bruce Cox                 John S. Bien              Pierre Martineau
    Bruce Holloway            Johnny Lee                Ralf Brown
    Bruce Mewborne            Jon W{tte                 Richard Addison
    Carl Schelin              Jonathan Handler          Richard P. Hughey
    Chris Russo               Joshua Delahunty          Rob Menke
    David Cohrs               Keizo Yamamoto            Roland McGrath
    David Damerell            Ken Arromdee              Ron Van Iwaarden
    David Gentzel             Ken Lorber                Ronnen Miller
    David Hairston            Ken Washikita             Ross Brown
    Dean Luick                Kevin Darcy               Sascha Wostmann
    Del Lamb                  Kevin Hugo                Scott R. Turner
    Deron Meranda             Kevin Sitze               Stephen Spackman
    Dylan O'Donnell           Kevin Smolkowski          Stephen White
    Eric Backus               Kevin Sweet               Steve Creps
    Eric Hendrickson          Mark Gooderum             Steve Linhart
    Eric R. Smith             Mark Modrall              Steve VanDevender
    Eric S. Raymond           Matthew Day               Tim Lennan
    Frederick Roeber          Merlyn LeRoy              Timo Hakulinen
    Gil Neiger                Michael Allison           Tom Almy
    Greg Laskin               Michael Feir              Tom West
    Greg Olson                Michael Hamel             Warwick Allison
    Gregg Wonderly            Michael Sokolov           Yitzhak Sapir
    Hao-yang Wang
