MSDOS specific help file for NetHack 3.4.3 (Last Revision: March 16, 2003) Copyright (c) NetHack PC Development Team 1993-2003. NetHack may be freely distributed. See license for details. New players should be sure to read GuideBoo.txt which contains essential information about playing NetHack. It can be found in the same directory as your NetHack executable. The MSDOS port of NetHack supports some additional or enhanced commands as well as some defaults.nh file options specific to configuration choices used during the building of PC NetHack. Listed below are those commands and defaults.nh file options. Recognized MSDOS specific defaults.nh entries are outlined below. Boolean Options: IBMgraphics Use IBM extended characters for the dungeon Default: [FALSE] BIOS Allow the use of IBM ROM BIOS calls Default: [FALSE] rawio Allow the use of raw I/O (may only be set on startup) Default: [FALSE] preload_tiles Preload tiles into RAM at start of game. Faster, but uses more memory. Default: [TRUE] Color Options: OPTIONS=!color Players will need this if they have a real, true, (old) monochrome adapter, and they are seeing underlined, and flashing, and reverse-video characters on the screen. Or they find that some things are missing from the display. This means that the auto-detection for monochromes has failed. The color support stuff is active in video.c, but may be (will have to be) overridden by adding an OPTIONS=nocolor to defaults.nh. OPTIONS=VIDEO (defaults.nh only) ie: OPTIONS=video:autodetect Possible values are: AUTODETECT, DEFAULT, VGA AUTODETECT Checks for a supported hi-res video adaptor, and if it detects one, NetHack will run in "TILE MODE." DEFAULT NetHack will run in TTY mode. This is the same as not specifying OPTIONS=VIDEO at all. VGA Forces use of VGA specific video routines. Any forcing of specific video routines has potential to cause machine lock-ups if the specified video hardware is not present. OPTIONS=VIDEOSHADES (defaults.nh only) Players may wish to add this option because one of their shades of gray is difficult to read on their video display hardware. Allows a level of intensity to be assigned to the 3 possible shades of gray in NetHack, those being BLACK, GRAY, WHITE. To each of those shades, the player may assign a DARK, NORMAL, or LIGHT value. Here is the default if not specified: ie. OPTIONS=VIDEOSHADES:dark-normal-light Anytime the same intensity value (DARK NORMAL LIGHT) is used for more than one shade of gray, it will not be possible to visually distinguish those two shades from each other. ie. OPTIONS=VIDEOSHADES:normal-normal-light This, while eliminating the dark shade normally used for displaying black items, means that the player won't be able to distinguish black items and creatures from gray items and creatures visually. Note also that the controversial gray schema used in pl 3.1.2 as the default, corresponded to: OPTIONS=VIDEOSHADES:normal-dark-normal This is NOT the default in pl 3.1.3 and above, so many people will probably not even need to use this option, and will find the default just fine. The maps are built using gray, and in pl 3.1.3, that is mapped to normal by default. In 3.1.2, it was mapped to dark (as above). OPTIONS=VIDEOCOLORS (defaults.nh only) This option is only provided because some people on r.g.r.n mentioned how they liked to modify the color values from the default ANSI.SYS behaviour, and were "upset" to find out that they could no longer do so under 3.1.2. The color map is as accurate as possible on standard PC video hardware as it stands, and any deviation from the default, will mean that people are mapping blue to green for example. The option is available to provide as much flexibility as possible, but it is not encouraged to be used. One possible use might be for the dark blue in fountains. On video hardware that has trouble displaying blacks, there may also be problems displaying the darker blue used in fountains. If that is the case then the default map: OPTIONS=VIDEOCOLORS:4-2-6-1-5-3-12-10-14-9-13-11 could be changed to the following to map blue to br. blue: OPTIONS=VIDEOCOLORS:4-2-6-9-5-3-12-10-14-9-13-11 The mapping order for the options: red, green, brown, blue, magenta, cyan br.red, br.green, yellow, br.blue, br.magenta, br.cyan The PC hardware uses the following values: red(4), green(2), brown(6), blue(1), magenta(5), cyan(3), bright red(12), bright green(10), yellow(14), bright blue(9), bright magenta(13), bright cyan(11), normal white(7), bright white(15). The following options are NOT currently recognized under the MSDOS port of PC NetHack: LEVELS= Where to store/create per level data files. SAVE= Where to save games. BONES= Where to store bones files. MSDOS Additional/Enhanced Commands: If you have opted to use the "graphical" or "tiled" option, (usually set via OPTIONS=VIDEO:AUTODETECT ((see above)), then the following function keys are active: F3 cycle through the current position indicator, or halo. Usually this halo highlights the player's tile, unless the game is asking you for an answer to a question that requires positional information, (ie, the discover command). F4 toggle level overview mode on/off F5 toggle tiled display on/off. (Switches between tiled and traditional ASCII display.) While playing NetHack under MSDOS you can press the ALT key in combination with another key to execute an extended command as an alternative method to pressing a # key sequence: Alt-2 twoweapon - toggle two-weapon combat Alt-a adjust - adjust inventory letters. Alt-c chat - talk to someone or something. Alt-d dip - dip an object into something. Alt-e enhance - enhance your skill with a weapon. Alt-f force - force a lock. Alt-i invoke - invoke an object's powers. Alt-j jump - jump to a location. Alt-l loot - loot a box on the floor. Alt-m monster - use a monster's special ability. Alt-n name - name an item or type of object. Alt-o offer - offer a sacrifice to the gods. Alt-p pray - pray to the gods for help. Alt-q quit - quit the game. (Same as #quit) Alt-r rub - rub a lamp. Alt-s sit - sit down. Alt-t turn - turn undead. Alt-u untrap - untrap something. Alt-v version - list compile time options for this version of NetHack. Alt-w wipe - wipe off your face. If you are playing on NEC PC-9800, use the GRPH key instead of the ALT key.