Nethack 20 Years Old Today · Slashdot Mirror

Posted by Zonk on Friday December 17, 2004 @05:26AM from the part-10-still-missing dept.

An Anonymous Reader wrote in to mention that, according to an informational page about the venerable game Hack, today is Hack's 20th birthday. From the page: "In December 1984 I distributed Hack 1.0 in the newsgroup net.sources.... [T]here were 15 pieces, all sent out on 17-Dec-84." From the reader: "This was the first widespread distribution of the game, which was created by Jay Fenlason a couple of years previously. Nethack's history continues here. You can download this descendant of Rogue from its home page, or connect to a nethack server. Many nethack veterans try their hand at Slash'EM, a.k.a., "nethack on amphetamines". Here's to another 20 years of training your dog to rip off shopkeepers."

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Re:Cool maths by Zach+Garner · 2004-12-17 06:12 · Score: 4, Insightful

So a game created "a couple of years" before 1984 is twenty years old today?

That's the difference between creation date and release date. It's common to focus more on the release date.

For a real world example: Many americans believe that people are created sometime before they are born. But still the birth date (somewhat equivalent to a software release date) is used for most purposes.