
                      Hello and welcome everybody 
                               to the 
                  Nethack-Recorder/Player Version 1.0 !

		     (C) 2000 by Helge Dennhardt

                      <Helge.Dennhardt@gmx.de>

=========================================================================

1.) What is Nethack?

    If you do not know it, you should go out and learn this first. 

    It has nothing to do with hacking into other
    computers. It's a game. It's a good game. I got addicted to it and
    infected many others with it. It's and ASCII-based one-player
    fantasy-dungeon game. You know, get your sword, go in, kill
    monsters, grab treasures, cast spells. 

    It's freeware, so everybody
    can copy it. It has been  ported to every machine I ever heard of. It's
    open source, so many people work on improvements. It has a still
    active development team and so many fans that they build up their
    own newsgroup (rec.games.roguelike.nethack). 

    This is not Nethack. I am no member of the development team.

2.) Where can I get Nethack? 

    Try "http://www.win.tue.nl/games/roguelike/nethack/" or perhaps
    "http://www.nethack.de". In case these links are
    no longer supported, try the above newsgroup. They can always help
    you with this.

3.) Ok, I know Nethack, what's this?

    This is a utility for Nethack. 

    First, there is the Nethack-Recorder ("nh_recorder"). It allows you
    to record your entire Nethack game into a movie file.

    Second, there is the Nethack-Player ("nh_player"). It allows you to
    replay your movie files at different speed or starting from a
    certain time index. With these two programs you can review your
    favourite Nethack-games. Watch and enjoy!

4.) How does it work?

    The recorder simply gets the standard output from Nethack and,
    besides from showing it on the screen, stores it in a movie file.

    In addition, it measures the elapsed time from the start of the
    game and everytime it has to wait for input (because Nethack waits
    for a keystroke) it also saves the time index of the next
    following character. 

    With this the movie player not only knows which characters it has to
    display, but also knows how long it has to wait in between. Thus
    the movie should run nearly as smooth as the game itself, provided
    your computer is fast enough not to cough and has an internal
    clock which also gives fractions of a second.
    
5.) What do I need?
    
    The binaries are in the package "nh_recorder-v1.0.tar.gz". 
    They are compiled with the Gnu C-Compiler under Suse-Linux on a
    Pentium II and tested with Nethack-3.3.0 .
      
    To install them, just unpack them and put the files
    "nh_recorder" and "nh_player" somewhere in your path, perhaps
    in your Nethack-folder.

    Invoke them with no parameters to get a help message, which
    explains how to use them. Enjoy!

6.) The binaries don't work. I need the sources!

    Since the binaries are compiled for Linux, they will only work
    there. If you have a different system, you need the sources.
    The sources are in the package "nh_recorder-v1.0.sources.tar.gz".

    They are written in C and come with a Makefile. Under Suse Linux
    it's enough just to type "make" to build the binaries. 

7.) The sources don't compile!

    At the time I wrote this, I had no experience in writing
    portable code, so the sources will probably not compile well on
    other systems, like other Unix variants, Macs or MS-DOS.
    However, I have put much effort in commenting the source, 
    so other programmers might easily adapt it. If you have adapted
    it yourself to another system, please let me know
    <Helge.Dennhardt@gmx.de>  
    
8.) Is this all for free?

    Yes, like Nethack it's freeware and open source. Copy it. Use
    it. Don't sell it. Improve it and tell me. Don't change things
    without marking your changes. Don't expect any warranty. To put it
    in a legal way: This software is distributed under the Gnu Public
    License. See the file "license" for details.


Appendix:

A.) When you type "nh_recorder" without any parameters you will get
    this help message:

This is the Nethack-Recorder Version 1.0
   (C) 2000 by Helge Dennhardt

SYNTAX:
  nethack | nh_recorder <movie-filename>

DESCRIPTION:
  With it you can record your Nethack-game into a file, which can be replayed
  later with Nethack-Player Version 1.0 (type "nh_player" to get a short help
  message). Simply redirect the standard  output into the Nethack-recorder as
  shown in the above syntax. Enjoy watching your old Nethack-games!

PARAMETER:
  <movie-filename> is the name of the file, in which the movie-information is
  to be stored. For this I suggest ".nh" as file  extension for Nethack movie
  files. In  case a file  with this  name already  exists,  the recorder will
  append to it.

NOTE:
  I beg you:  PLEASE, DON'T POST YOUR MOVIES!  They are too big.  People will
  get annoyed.  If you want to share your  Nethack adventures, mail them, put
  them on a website for  downloading or  post them in the alt.binaries.* tree
  with only a small note in a Nethack newsgroup. Thank you.



B.) When you type "nh_player" without any parameters you will get this
    help message:


This is the Nethack-Player Version 1.0
   (c) 2000 by Helge Dennhardt

SYNTAX:
  nh_player [ -s<speed> ] [ -t<days>.<hours>.<minutes>.<seconds> ]
            <movie-filename>

DESCRIPTION:
  With it  you can  play the  movie-files  generated by  the Nethack-Recorder
  Version  1.0  (type "nh_recorder"  to get a  short help  message).  Enjoy
  watching your old Nethack-games!

PARAMETERS:
 -s<speed>        Here you  adjust the speed in which the movies  are played.
                  Only one digit  is allowed, so the speed can range from -s0
                  (total stop) over -s1  (normal speed) up to -s9 (nine times
                  normal speed). Default is -s1.
 -t<days>.<hours>.<minutes>.<seconds>
                  Though several  speeds are supported, for technical reasons
                  there  is no rewind. Nevertheless, you can stop  the player
                  and with  this option restart it at a time index you  want.
                  For  example -t0.1.20.0 will start the  movie one  hour and
                  twenty minutes after its start. Default is -t0.0.0.0
 <movie-filename> The filename of the movie you want to play.

KEYS:
 0-9              You can change the speed of the movie at any time by
                  hitting the appropriate number keys.
 q,Q              Quits the program.









  

















