Date   : Tue, 23 Jan 1990 00:03:32 GMT
From   : portal!cup.portal.com!Azog-Thoth@uunet.uu.net (William Thomas Daugustine)
Subject: NetHack for CP/M?

     Is  it  possible  (or has it already  been  done?)  to  port 
NetHack to CP/M?
     I talked to a couple of people already about this, but  have 
gotten  no straight answers... They were the kind of  people  who 
refuse to belive that CP/M is still being used today...
     Anyways,  some  good  points were brought up.  I  dont  have 
experence with it firsthand, but I was told that NetHack takes  a 
meg  of RAM. In a 64k environment, that sounds daunting, but  for 
one  thing, overlays can be used. Heck, theyre used all the  time 
(take a look at WS4 and ZMP). So, only the 'core' need be running 
in  RAM  at  one  time, while it pulls what  it  needs  from  the 
overlay(s). Of couse, a hard disk would be needed...
     Another  was the 'non-standardness' of CP/M machines. I  see 
that a port to MS-DOS exists, and MS-DOS uses quite a few of  the 
same  calls  that CP/M has (MS-DOS Int 21h for the most  part  is 
similar  to the BDOS). Things like termcap are no  problem,  ZCPR 
users  already have that figured out, and CP/M users should  know 
what  their  terminal  emulates (it seems that quite  a  few  are 
TeleVideo and Lear-Siegler (sp) compatable)
     About  the only BIG problem I can really see is things  like 
the BIOS, and that shouldnt be a problem, either. An extra header 
file can define all the needed machine dependant stuff.

     Is  it possible? Or am I looking at something thats  just  a 
pipe-dream?

|----------------------------------------------------------------|
| Billy D'Augustine          (201)989-8161 | The author is not   |
| Azog-Thoth@cup.portal.com                | responsable for     |
| sun!portal!cup.portal.com!Azog-Thoth     | typgraphic errors!  |
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