NiM5: Shared Adventure Game
---------------------------

Brought to you by Locke;

NiM5 is an advanced multi-user gaming server.

It is based on the works of the following softwares, though its source
code may not resemble the works of these people, I feel it important
to mention the "greats" - who have influenced this work, and which
continue to influence artistic representations of other worlds.

Z-games such as Zork, Planetfall and Wishbringer, Lurking Fear,
creations of Steve Meretsky and others at Infocom.

Diku and Merc variant Dikumud I multi-user domains, which have included
the specific influences of:

Nameless Merc, Locke's first mud, played on a green VAX/VMS terminal,
Hidden Worlds a Merc 1.0 with early "building" opportunities, 
Surreal and Locke's favorite, 
DuneMUSH (our learning experience), 
Zebesta, where we met our compatriots and fellow MUDkateers, 
Kalgen and Zlixlt, well-done-derring-do, 
Aldara ]I[, where God was in the details with the help of Morgenes,
ROM (Rivers of MUD) and our rival Alander aka Russ Taylor, 

And our neighbors:

Armageddon (pre- and post-Morgenes), 
newly recognized CORE, Valhalla (DikuMUD ][) from whom we learned,
and newly noticed variants such as Realms of Despair 
and a shout-out to ROM-based, Adventurer's Inn.

Of course the great works of PennMUSH and TinyMUSH, where once
was made FutureMUSH (run by Locke),
the archaic knowledge of the DUMs such as CanDUM and others,
the LambdaMOOs and the Divination Web (a MUCK) run by cohorts of
Shawn Knight and the Beast 666 (a thelemic gathering space once
hosted at Carnegie Mellon University, well perhaps not, but at
least by their peers).

And of course ISCABBS, without whom none of this would be possible.

But perhaps you would like to kick it back farther with me for a minute
to remember Valhalla BBS, a hack/phrack board in Pittsburgh, on which
was White Knight, the infamous, and the RESIST movement, before it
became a gay rights movement, back with the hackers and the rumorz
of the original Razor Sam Hopkins who now is vice president of a
local 'Burgh ISP called Nauticomm.

Maybe you remember Telegard and Renegade, but I remember Chat Thing,
a notorious late-night hangout at 300 baud, before my account was
suspended and we met our match with Trade Wars and Baron Realms.

Maybe you can remember the world of dialups, LD dialing ports, BBS lists,
x-rated graphics dithered and so unrecognizable in 3 colors and a
world of Demos by groups called Future Crew and Renaissance.

This is NiMUD a product which is not a whole or a sum of its parts.

Now called NiM5.  So...

Introduction
------------

Welcome to NiM5!  This server was written by Herb Gilliland; the project 
began in 1992 and continues to this day.  NiM5 was the first to release
an open-source multi-user gaming software including such advanced features
as OLC; you are free to use this software, but it comes AS IS and WITHOUT
any WARRANTY expressed or implied.

NiM5 contains hundreds of hours of work and you are benefitting, please
keep our credits in your respective documentation.

You must keep our contact email in your server software documentation,
credits and help files; it is theisles@mugs.net

You may not release versions of this source code without express consent 
from its author, Herb "Locke" Gilliland, who can be contacted at 
locke@mugs.net or theisles@mugs.net; it is an important and relevant issue 
to mention that NiM5 represents a new paradigm in multi-user gaming 
terminology and vision, but yet is not a perfect piece of software and may 
contain bugs which could have adverse effects.  We have done our best to 
insure that no code contained herein could be considered "malicious" --
but it is possible, through tampering, that the source could damage your 
machine in some way.

You are encouraged to read the documentation contained in /NiM5/docs
for more information on a variety of useful topics related to this 
software and its functioning, including methods of debugging, extra 
features not implemented in the standard release, suggestions for 
development and tips for protecting yourself legally should you decide to 
release a derived version of this software.

Portions of the code are copyright (c) 2003 to Herbert Gilliland, and are 
considered property under the U.S. department of copyrights registration 
office.  The structure and contents of the code are registered with this 
office and are the property of Herbert Gilliland.

Do visit credits.txt for more information on this code's contributers.

Compiling
---------

To compile the code, simply type "./recompile" from within the NiM5 
install directory.  This script will create a fresh archived backup of the 
original source code in "/NiM5/backups/1001.backup" directory.

Porting
-------

Previous versions of NiM5 have been successfully ported to Win32, Solaris, 
BSD and MacOS X (which runs a version of FreeBSD).  It has compiled+run
successfully on Debian, Redhat Linux, FreeBSD, Ultrix, AndrewUNIX, 
and Solaris.  This version is actively developed on Debian and SunOS.

Unsupported code within the source is still available for Sequent, MIPS
and AIX.  It has not been compiled or run on a machine of this type
for a very long time.

The macintosh version may experience some difficulty compiling, if you are 
a Mac user interested in developing a patch or fix for future versions, 
you are more than welcome to as we hope to support Macintosh fully in the 
future.  A version of the networking routines which worked fine on the 
Macintosh port of the socket routines is located at /src/net_macfix.c and
is incomplete.

Getting Started
---------------

BEFORE YOU RUN ANY SCRIPTS MAKE SURE TO EDIT THE $filepath IN EACH OF THEM

--To run the mud:

from the directory you installed, run "startup"

make sure to not run any other scripts ("package", "recompile" or "cleanup")
while the startup script is running for best results

--To clean up the installation directories:

from the directory you installed, run "cleanup"
this script removes unwanted .txt files, backs up into backups directory
removes .o files
backs up players, areas and source code
clears the log directory
clears nohup.out files
stores file lists in each backup under file 'manifest.txt'

--dirs manifest:

area           <- area files and boards
backups        <- gets big
bootlog        <- just the boot logs
cleanup        <- cleanup script (See above)
docs           <- documentation and licensing information
docs/imc       <- imc2 documentation and licensing information
docs/snippets  <- uninstalled 'optional' features from Erwin S. et al
log            <- log files
player         <- player files
package        <- stores the source in NiM5.src.tar.gz
recompile      <- run only when down
src            <- source code
startup        <- startup script

