Hack for PDP-11 (Huisjes & de Wilde)

Unmodified source code for the PDP-11 version of Hack by Michiel Huisjes and Fred de Wilde of the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam. This version bridges Jay Fenlason's original 1982 Hack and the later Hack 1.0 distributed by Andries Brouwer at CWI.

This repository preserves two distributions of the same codebase:

• hack-pdp11/ — PDP-11/44 and PDP-11/45 source, extracted from a single shar file (source.txt). Links -ltermlib.
• pcix/ — PC/IX (IBM PC UNIX) port, extracted from a 5-part Usenet net.sources.games posting. Adds string.s (assembly string routines) and links -ltermcap instead of -ltermlib.

Provenance

Both distributions were recovered from the Usenet archives preserved by the SuperGlobalMegaCorp Altavista Archive. The PDP-11 shar files were manually assembled from five individual postings; the PC/IX parts were extracted from the related net.sources.games group.

PDP-11 source (net.sources):

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Full archive directory

PC/IX source (net.sources.games):

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5

Authors

From the READ_ME:

Some additions we (Fred de Wilde and Michiel Huisjes) made are

• The Vault
• The Swamp
• The Zoo
• The Graveyard
• Maxlevel = 40
• Proper Saving
• Several bugs
• And many, many more...

Contact (original): {seismo|decvax|philabs}!mcvac!vu44!ark!huisjes

The wizard is defined as "huisjes" in envir.h.

Differences from Fenlason Hack (1982)

This version represents a substantial expansion over Fenlason's original:

Feature	Fenlason	PDP-11/PC/IX
Source files	~8	~45
Dungeon features	rooms, corridors, maze	+ vault, swamp, zoo, graveyard
Creatures	basic monsters	+ dogs, worms, shopkeepers
Max level	30	40
Save system	basic	proper save/restore
Bones files	no	yes
Inventory	minimal	full system with wear/wield
Record file	text	binary (with show -r viewer)

Differences Between PDP-11 and PC/IX

The two distributions are nearly identical. Known differences:

• PC/IX adds string.s — assembly language string routines for the IBM PC
• PC/IX Makefile links -ltermcap; PDP-11 links -ltermlib
• PC/IX Makefile includes string.o in HOBJ
• PDP-11 distribution includes help and READ_ME; PC/IX omits both

Building

These sources target V7/2BSD Unix on a PDP-11 and will not compile on modern systems without modification. They are preserved here as historical artifacts.

The original build instructions from the READ_ME:

Edit the file envir.h to define the local parameters. Edit the Makefile to define the playdir directory (default /usr/games). Determine who will be the owner of the game, since it has the setuid bits on. [...] Now type make and the file hack, mklev and show will be created.

Related Projects

• fenlason-hack — Jay Fenlason's original 1982 Hack from Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School
• restoHack — Restoration of Hack v1.0.3 for modern systems

License

This source code predates modern open source licensing. It is preserved here for historical and educational purposes.