NetHack 5.0 for Amiga
====================
Requirements
------------
- AmigaOS 3.0 or later (Kickstart 39+)
- 6 MB free RAM minimum (8 MB recommended)
- Hard drive with ~5 MB free space
Recommended: RTG graphics card (Picasso96/CyberGraphX) for best
tile rendering. Native AGA/OCS/ECS chipsets are supported.
Installation
------------
Extract NH500AMI.ZIP (or NH500AMIn.ZIP if there's a an updated
binary, where 'n' is a digit suffix) somewhere on your hard drive
(e.g. into Work:). You'll get a NetHack drawer with everything inside.
To play from Workbench, open the NetHack drawer and double-click the
nethack icon.
To play from a Shell:
Work:NetHack/nethack
To redirect to a different install -- for example to test two versions
side by side -- set the NETHACKDIR (or HACKDIR) environment variable
before launching:
setenv NETHACKDIR Work:games/nethack-dev/
Work:games/nethack-dev/nethack
Display Modes
-------------
The shipped nethack.cnf selects tile mode (AMIV). AMIV needs a screen
with at least 4 bitplanes (16 colours) and ~384 KB free chip RAM; on
machines that don't qualify, the binary automatically falls back to
text mode (AMII) at startup with a short note explaining why.
Tile mode auto-selects tiles32.iff (32 colors, 5 bitplanes) when the
screen supports 32+ colors, otherwise tiles16.iff (16 colors, 4 planes).
To force text mode unconditionally, edit nethack.cnf:
#OPTIONS=windowtype:amiv
OPTIONS=windowtype:amii
OPTIONS=symset:AmigaFont
Configuration
-------------
Edit nethack.cnf for game options. Defaults shipped:
OPTIONS=windowtype:amiv - tile graphics
OPTIONS=number_pad:1 - numpad movement; '5' is run prefix
OPTIONS=time,showexp - turn count, experience visible
OPTIONS=lit_corridor - show lit corridors
OPTIONS=menucolors - colored inventory items
ALT+letter shortcuts to extended commands (ALT+L for #loot, ALT+F for
#force, etc.) are enabled by default. On keymaps that need ALT for
typing characters (Scandinavian, German, French, ...) disable with:
OPTIONS=!altmeta
Menu color examples (after OPTIONS=menucolors):
MENUCOLOR=" blessed "=green
MENUCOLOR=" cursed "=red
MENUCOLOR=" uncursed "=cyan
Building from Source
--------------------
Cross-compilation from Linux using bebbo's m68k-amigaos-gcc toolchain
(https://franke.ms/git/bebbo/amiga-gcc):
# Install toolchain to /opt/amiga
# Clone NetHack 5.0 source
cd NetHack
sys/unix/setup.sh sys/unix/hints/linux.500
make fetch-lua
make CROSS_TO_AMIGA=1 fetch-regex
make CROSS_TO_AMIGA=1 all
make CROSS_TO_AMIGA=1 package
The distribution ZIP is created at targets/amiga/NH500AMI.ZIP.
Toolchain requirements:
- m68k-amigaos-gcc (bebbo's amigaos-cross-toolchain in /opt/amiga)
- -noixemul (libnix) for linking
- -m68000 for maximum compatibility (or -m68020/040/060)
Known Issues
------------
- Native Amiga compilation (SAS/C, DICE) is not supported;
cross-compilation with GCC is required
Credits
-------
Olaf Seibert first ported NetHack 2.3 and 3.0 to the Amiga.
Richard Addison, Andrew Church, Jochen Erwied, Mark Gooderum,
Ken Lorber, Greg Olson, Mike Passaretti, and Gregg Wonderly
polished and extended the 3.0 and 3.1 ports. Andrew Church,
Ken Lorber, and Gregg Wonderly are responsible for the 3.2 port.
Janne Salmijärvi resurrected the Amiga port for 3.3 and
Teemu Suikki joined before 3.4.0.
Updated for NetHack 5.0, cross compile fixes and 32 color tile support by Ingo
Paschke in 2026.
Ingo Paschke
252ca5bef7