SLASH'EM History file for release 0.2

Behold, mortal, the origins of SLASH'EM...

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.

A scant one month before the next major version  release  of Nethack,  two  
adventurous souls undertook their own modification to the sacred Nethack
formula. Tom Proudfoot and  Yuval  released Nethack++,   which  was rapidly
renamed Nethack--,  containeing new monsters,  items and other miscellaneous
modifications.
 
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 Watte 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 added in the "tiled" version of the game and generated most
of the individual tiles for NetHack 3.2.

Time passed,  and Nethack-- was ported to 3.11 by Chris.

Stephen White then released his own  modification  known  as Nethack  Plus,
which  contained  new  character classes.  Unbeknownst to the world at large,
Tom Proudfoot  took  this  source and combined it with his Nethack--.
Stephen White went on to add weapon skills,  which were eventually integrated
into  the  next version of Nethack,  and other features.

In February 1996,  Tom Proudfoot released SLASH V1.  Including part of
Stephen White's Nethack Plus and his  own  Nethack--, leaving  unmentioned
his own slew of further modifications,  this is perhaps the best known of
the Nethack modifications.  Six versions of this,  ending with SLASH V6,
are known to exist.

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 marks 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 the current 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.  This release of the game is dedicated to him by the
development and porting teams.

Version 3.2 is more stable than previous versions, (it is hoped).  Many bugs
have been fixed, abuses eliminated, and game features tuned for better game
play.  The menus have been modified to give players more choices in styles
for menus which require pick list selections.  A graphical display has been
added for some ports.  (Added to the X11 port by Dean Luick, to the
Amiga port by Ken Lorber, and to the DOS port by Michael Allison.)  The
spell system and weapon proficiency portions of the game were adapted by
Stephen White from his NHPlus variant.  (The #qualifications' and '#enhance'
extended commands were added to make use of these changes.)  Additional game
changes worth mentioning: light sources no longer have to be carried by the
player to be used; wands can be destroyed if desired (use the 'a'pply
command); treasures can be found buried in walls or in the floor; the
'#untrap' command has been improved; and, wands of probing now provide more
information.  Other more subtle changes have also been added to the game.
You will have to play the game to discover them.

Pat Rankin maintained 3.2 for VMS.

Michael Allison, Yitzhak Sapir, and Paul Winner, with help from Steve Linhart,
Kevin Smolkowski, Mike Stephenson and Stephen White ported 3.2 for MSDOS.
Keizo Yamamoto and Ken Washikita ported 3.2 for the NEC 98xx machines popular
in Japan.

Ken Lorber, Andy Church, and Gregg Wonderly, with help from Richard Addison,
ported 3.2 for the Amiga.

Dean Luick ported 3.2 to the Macintosh.

Eric Smith and Warwick Allison ported 3.2 for the Ataris.

Michael Allison ported 3.2 for the Microsoft Windows NT platform.

Timo Hakulinen remains responsible for the OS/2 port.

Larry Stewart-Zerba set along a different track - to enhance the spellcasting
abilities of the Wizard.   Thus, in April  1996, he  released  version  0.1
of the Wizard Patch.  By July,  he was joined by Warwick Allison and
version 0.4 of the Wizard Patch was released.   The final update came in
September 1996,  with the release of Wizard Patch 0.7.

SLASH V6 was picked up by Enrico Horn managed to synchronize it  with the
3.2 source.  The new SLASH 4.1.2 was released as far back as November 1996
went through at least 4 editlevels (E5, E6, E7)  with  the  latest  version
being 4.1.2E8,  synchronized with Nethack 3.2.2 and the Blackmarket option
available,  released in June 1997.

Nathan La began the arduous task of drawing  tiles  for  the SLASH monsters.

Kentaro Shirakata ported SLASH 4.1.2E8 to Unix.

Lief Clennon ported SLASH 4.1.2E8 to OS/2.

Romain Dolbeau ported SLASH 4.1.2E8 to Macintosh.

Warren Cheung combined SLASH 4.1.2 and Wizard Patch to  create SLASH'EM 0.1
in November 1997.  Several revisions including new spells and other minor
additions have led to SLASH'EM  0.0.3. Steven Uy has generously made
additional modifications.

Dirk  Schoenberger has continued updating the SLASH/SLASH'EM monster tiles.
He has also ported SLASH'EM to Linux.

Lief Clennon ported SLASH'EM to OS/2 EMX.

Kevin Hugo ported SLASH'EM to Macintosh,  and has also  contributed
additional changes and improvements.

Robin Johnson finished arduous task of drawing tiles for the SLASH'EM
monsters.  He has also contributed many more new  tiles.

			   - - - - - - - - - -

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
