Pack of floppies - Revision history

ScienceBall: /* Description */ typo

2024-07-21T01:44:11Z

‎Description: typo

Umbire the Phantom: wordsmithing

2024-07-20T01:19:52Z

wordsmithing

Umbire the Phantom: gen

2023-10-28T03:02:07Z

gen

Umbire the Phantom: /* Origin */ and finish with botched italics!

2023-09-27T23:04:56Z

‎Origin: and finish with botched italics!

Umbire the Phantom: and then flesh out more...

2023-09-27T22:42:15Z

and then flesh out more...

Umbire the Phantom: ...and start trimming this section finally!

2023-09-27T22:18:49Z

...and start trimming this section finally!

Umbire the Phantom: update with findings...

2023-09-27T21:54:37Z

update with findings...

Umbire the Phantom: cut out comment now that the pages are made, re-add messages, correct weight

2023-09-27T21:48:18Z

cut out comment now that the pages are made, re-add messages, correct weight

Umbire the Phantom: and tweak comment before I hop off

2023-09-27T12:05:07Z

and tweak comment before I hop off

Umbire the Phantom: bit of formatting - definitely need to trim this origin section...

2023-09-27T12:01:02Z

bit of formatting - definitely need to trim this origin section...

@@ Line 28: / Line 28: @@
 * "nothing of importance"
-Reading "Microsoft Windows 3.1" will print [[YAFM|a message]] and cause the heor to become [[confused]] for 50-100 turns, while finding "Bill Gates" also prints a message, but has no other effect. The other disk labels have no effect when read.
+Reading "Microsoft Windows 3.1" will print [[YAFM|a message]] and cause the hero to become [[confused]] for 50-100 turns, while finding "Bill Gates" also prints a message, but has no other effect. The other disk labels have no effect when read.
 ==Strategy==

@@ Line 19: / Line 19: @@
 ==Description==
-A Hacker can "read" the contents of floppies by [[apply]]ing them while not [[blind]], revealing one of six potential disks at random:<!--Yes, Geek can't despite starting with them, both roles are still very scuffed currently-->
+A [[hero]] that is a Hacker can "read" the contents of floppies by [[apply]]ing them while not [[blind]], revealing one of six potential disks at random:<!--No, the Geek cannot despite starting with them, both roles are still very scuffed currently-->
 * Microsoft Windows 3.1
@@ Line 28: / Line 28: @@
 * "nothing of importance"
-Reading "Microsoft Windows 3.1" will print [[YAFM]] and cause you to become [[confused]] for 50-100 turns, while finding "Bill Gates" also prints [[YAFM]], but has no other effect. The other disk labels have no effect when read.
+Reading "Microsoft Windows 3.1" will print [[YAFM|a message]] and cause the heor to become [[confused]] for 50-100 turns, while finding "Bill Gates" also prints a message, but has no other effect. The other disk labels have no effect when read.
 ==Strategy==
@@ Line 43: / Line 43: @@
 As still-more efficient storage media became available to modern computer users, floppies are more and more rarely seen outside of legacy systems (particularly industrial equipment). It is still possible to access 3.5" disks on modern computers via USB floppy drives, and drivers to read the disks are still present in modern editions of [[wikipedia:Linux|Linux]] - far fewer options for reading older disk form factors exist outside of specialized devices or else computers from that same period combined with a means to interface with more modern hardware (e.g. a network connection, serial port, or even simply a 3.5" floppy drive).
-The contents of a pack of floppies includes several references to geek culture as well:
+The contents of a pack of floppies includes some references to geek culture as well:
 * ''[[wikipedia:Leisure Suit Larry 5|Leisure Suit Larry V]]'' is an entry in the ''[[Wikipedia:Leisure Suit Larry|Leisure Suit Larry]]'' series of adventure video games, whose protagonist is the titular Larry Laffer: a balding computer programmer and lifelong geek in his 40s who tries and frequently fails to seduce attractive young women, designed as a parody of stereotypical male chauvinism.

@@ Line 15: / Line 15: @@
 ==Generation==
 [[Geek]]s and [[Hacker]]s each start the game with a pack of floppies in their inventory.
 ==Description==

@@ Line 43: / Line 43: @@
 The contents of a pack of floppies includes several references to geek culture as well:
-* [[wikipedia:Leisure Suit Larry 5|Leisure Suit Larry V]]'' is an entry in the ''[[Wikipedia:Leisure Suit Larry|Leisure Suit Larry]]'' series of adventure video games, whose protagonist is the titular Larry Laffer: a balding computer programmer and lifelong geek in his 40s who tries and frequently fails to seduce attractive young women, designed as a parody of stereotypical male chauvinism.
+* ''[[wikipedia:Leisure Suit Larry 5|Leisure Suit Larry V]]'' is an entry in the ''[[Wikipedia:Leisure Suit Larry|Leisure Suit Larry]]'' series of adventure video games, whose protagonist is the titular Larry Laffer: a balding computer programmer and lifelong geek in his 40s who tries and frequently fails to seduce attractive young women, designed as a parody of stereotypical male chauvinism.
 * [[wikipedia:Windows 3.1x|Microsoft Windows 3.1]] is a major release for the operating system that was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992. Both Microsoft and its co-founder [[wikipedia:Bill Gates|Bill Gates]] are reviled in 'typical' geek circles for various reasons, including monopolization of operating systems that promoted the use of proprietary software over open-source alternatives such as Linux - this is the basis for both YAFMs and the potential confusion from applying a pack of floppies.

@@ Line 21: / Line 21: @@
 * Microsoft Windows 3.1
 * Bill Gates
-* [[wikipedia:Leisure Suit Larry 5|Leisure Suit Larry V]]
+* Leisure Suit Larry V
 * LINUX 1.00
 * your NetHack [[patch]]es
@@ Line 35: / Line 35: @@
 A floppy disk is a dated form of data storage used from the 1960s to the 1990s, composed of a flexible circular disk that the data is magnetically recorded on. The name comes from the early 5.25" and 8" [[Wikipedia:Form factor (design)|form factors]] (or physical specifications) that had flexible cases - the term is also used for the later 3.5" disks, which instead have a rigid plastic case; the description of this item when unidentified suggests that the pack is composed of 3.5" "floppy" disks.
-The original 8" disks were used on business systems, while the 5.25" disks ('mini-floppies') were common to the Apple II and early PCs, and the 3.5" disks ('micro-floppies') were used on Macs and later PCs. During the early years of ''[[NetHack]]'' development, floppy disks would have been a standard medium for storing and exchanging files, including personal copies of the NetHack source and patches - they fittingly appear in the starting inventory of the historical Geek roles in variants, which are both tributes to NetHack players.
+The original 8" disks were used on business systems, while the 5.25" disks ('mini-floppies') were common to the Apple II and early PCs, and the 3.5" disks ('micro-floppies') were used on Macs and later PCs. During the early years of ''[[NetHack]]'' development and play, floppy disks would have been a standard medium for storing and exchanging files, including personal copies of the NetHack source and patches - thus, they appear in the starting inventory of the Geek roles from both NetHack: The Next Generation and NetHack-- 3.0.10, with the Hacker of SlashTHEM derived from the latter; one of the disks that can be "read" by the Hacker contains NetHack patches.
 Floppy disk capacity varied greatly depending on the "density" of the disk itself, whether one or both sides were used, and the geometric pattern used to record data: A single-sided 5.25" floppy could have as little as 140KB of usable storage, while the largest "common" floppy capacity was 1.44MB for 3.5" disks; later proprietary "superfloppy" systems such as [[Wikipedia:Zip drive|Iomega zip disks]] had capacities of up to 750MB, but never gained wide acceptance due to both being incompatible with existing disks and to emerging shortly before more practical solutions, such as rewritable CDs and USB flash drives.
 As still-more efficient storage media became available to modern computer users, floppies are more and more rarely seen outside of legacy systems (particularly industrial equipment). It is still possible to access 3.5" disks on modern computers via USB floppy drives, and drivers to read the disks are still present in modern editions of [[wikipedia:Linux|Linux]] - far fewer options for reading older disk form factors exist outside of specialized devices or else computers from that same period combined with a means to interface with more modern hardware (e.g. a network connection, serial port, or even simply a 3.5" floppy drive).
 ==Messages==

@@ Line 33: / Line 33: @@
 ==Origin==
 {{wikipedia|Floppy disk}}
-Floppy disks are a dated form of data storage used from the 1960s to the 1990s, consisting of circular pieces of a flexible material on which the data is magnetically recorded. With more efficient storage media such as optical drives, flash drives, and cloud storage available to modern computer users, floppies are now rarely seen, except occasionally on legacy systems (particularly industrial equipment), and some present-day computer users have probably never used a floppy disk, or even a computer that has a floppy drive. However, during the early years of [[NetHack]]'s development, floppy disks would have been a standard medium for storing and exchanging files, including personal copies of the NetHack source and patches, so they appear as part of the starting inventory of the Geek, a tribute to NetHack players.
+A floppy disk is a dated form of data storage used from the 1960s to the 1990s, composed of a flexible circular disk that the data is magnetically recorded on. The name comes from the early 5.25" and 8" [[Wikipedia:Form factor (design)|form factors]] (or physical specifications) that had flexible cases - the term is also used for the later 3.5" disks, which instead have a rigid plastic case; the description of this item when unidentified suggests that the pack is composed of 3.5" "floppy" disks.
-Floppy disks came in a variety of form factors, but the most prominent sizes were the original 8" disks used on business systems, the 5.25" disks ('mini-floppies') common to the Apple II and early PCs, and the 3.5" disks ('micro-floppies') used on Macs and later PCs.  The name "floppy disks" is somewhat counterintuitive when used to describe the later 3.5" disks: these have a rigid plastic case, and hence are not "floppy".  However, earlier floppy disks, like the 5.25" and 8" disks, had a flexible case, and were thus known as "floppy" disks since their invention circa 1970.  This item's unidentified description ''"box containing little plastic cards"'' suggests that these disks are in fact 3.5" disks.
+The original 8" disks were used on business systems, while the 5.25" disks ('mini-floppies') were common to the Apple II and early PCs, and the 3.5" disks ('micro-floppies') were used on Macs and later PCs. During the early years of ''[[NetHack]]'' development, floppy disks would have been a standard medium for storing and exchanging files, including personal copies of the NetHack source and patches - they fittingly appear in the starting inventory of the historical Geek roles in variants, which are both tributes to NetHack players.
-Floppy disks varied greatly in capacity, depending both on the "density" of the disk itself, whether one or both sides were used, and the geometric pattern used by the floppy drive to record data on the disk.  A single-sided 5.25" floppy could have as little as 140KB of usable storage, while the largest "common" floppy capacity was 1.44MB for 3.5" disks (though limited numbers of 2.88MB disks and drives were produced).  Later proprietary "superfloppy" systems such as [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zip_drive Iomega zip disks] had capacities of up to 750MB, but these never gained wide acceptance, being incompatible with existing disks and emerging only shortly before more practical solutions such as rewritable CDs and USB flash drives.
+Floppy disk capacity varied greatly depending on the "density" of the disk itself, whether one or both sides were used, and the geometric pattern used to record data: A single-sided 5.25" floppy could have as little as 140KB of usable storage, while the largest "common" floppy capacity was 1.44MB for 3.5" disks; later proprietary "superfloppy" systems such as [[Wikipedia:Zip drive|Iomega zip disks]] had capacities of up to 750MB, but never gained wide acceptance due to both being incompatible with existing disks and to emerging shortly before more practical solutions, such as rewritable CDs and USB flash drives.
-It is possible to access 3.5" disks on virtually any modern computer: USB floppy drives are common, and drivers to read the disks are still present in modern editions of Linux.  However, options for reading older disks are quite limited: there are no USB 5.25" or 8" drives available, and no modern operating systems support them.  Outside of specialized devices, the best option is to set up a "period" computer with the appropriate diskette drive, and some way of communicating with more modern hardware (e.g. a network connection, serial port, or even simply a 3.5" floppy drive).
+As still-more efficient storage media became available to modern computer users, floppies are more and more rarely seen outside of legacy systems (particularly industrial equipment). It is still possible to access 3.5" disks on modern computers via USB floppy drives, and drivers to read the disks are still present in modern editions of [[wikipedia:Linux|Linux]] - far fewer options for reading older disk form factors exist outside of specialized devices or else computers from that same period combined with a means to interface with more modern hardware (e.g. a network connection, serial port, or even simply a 3.5" floppy drive).
 ==Messages==

@@ Line 11: / Line 11: @@
 A '''pack of floppies''' is a [[tool]] in that appears in [[NetHack: The Next Generation]] and [[SlashTHEM]]. It is made of [[plastic]], and appears as a '''box containing little plastic cards''' when unidentified.
-A pack of floppies is the [[base item]] for two [[quest artifact]]s: [[The Nethack Sources]] and the [[Master Boot Disk]].
+The pack of floppies is the [[base item]] for two [[quest artifact]]s: [[The Nethack Sources]] and the [[Master Boot Disk]].
 ==Generation==
-[[Geek]]s and [[Hacker]]s start with a pack of floppies in their inventory.
+[[Geek]]s and [[Hacker]]s each start the game with a pack of floppies in their inventory.
 ==Description==
-A Geek or Hacker can "read" the contents of floppies by [[apply]]ing them while not [[blind]], revealing one of six potential disks at random:
+A Hacker can "read" the contents of floppies by [[apply]]ing them while not [[blind]], revealing one of six potential disks at random:<!--Yes, Geek can't despite starting with them, both roles are still very scuffed currently-->
 * Microsoft Windows 3.1
@@ Line 29: / Line 29: @@
 ==Strategy==
-Most roles will have no use for a pack of floppies. However, Geeks and Graduates can use them to reap the benefits of reading certain [[scroll]]s [[Confusion#Confused scroll effects|while confused]] - a non-cursed [[unicorn horn]] is ideal to cure the confusion afterward.
+Most roles will have no use for a pack of floppies. However, Hackers can use them to reap the benefits of reading certain [[scroll]]s [[Confusion#Confused scroll effects|while confused]] - a non-cursed [[unicorn horn]] is ideal to cure the confusion afterward.
 ==Origin==

@@ Line 5: / Line 5: @@
    |appearance=box containing little plastic cards
    |cost=300
-   |weight=0
+   |weight=30
    |material=plastic
 }}
 A '''pack of floppies''' is a [[tool]] in that appears in [[NetHack: The Next Generation]] and [[SlashTHEM]]. It is made of [[plastic]], and appears as a '''box containing little plastic cards''' when unidentified.
@@ Line 16: / Line 17: @@
 ==Description==
-A Geek or Hacker can "read" the contents of floppies by [[apply]]ing them while not [[blind]], revealing one of six potential disk labels at random:
+A Geek or Hacker can "read" the contents of floppies by [[apply]]ing them while not [[blind]], revealing one of six potential disks at random:
 * Microsoft Windows 3.1
@@ Line 29: / Line 30: @@
 ==Strategy==
 Most roles will have no use for a pack of floppies. However, Geeks and Graduates can use them to reap the benefits of reading certain [[scroll]]s [[Confusion#Confused scroll effects|while confused]] - a non-cursed [[unicorn horn]] is ideal to cure the confusion afterward.
 ==Origin==
@@ Line 47: / Line 40: @@
 It is possible to access 3.5" disks on virtually any modern computer: USB floppy drives are common, and drivers to read the disks are still present in modern editions of Linux.  However, options for reading older disks are quite limited: there are no USB 5.25" or 8" drives available, and no modern operating systems support them.  Outside of specialized devices, the best option is to set up a "period" computer with the appropriate diskette drive, and some way of communicating with more modern hardware (e.g. a network connection, serial port, or even simply a 3.5" floppy drive).
 {{variant-343}}
 [[Category:NetHack: The Next Generation items]]
 [[Category:SlashTHEM items]]

@@ Line 31: / Line 31: @@
 <!--save these for the actual article and ditch once they're used
 ==Artifacts==
-'''The Nethack Sources''' is the [[Geek]] quest artifact, a neutral-aligned pack of floppies that grants [[searching]], [[ESP]], and [[regeneration]] while carried. It can be [[invoke]]d to [[identify]] items, presumably by very fast [[source diving]].
+'''The Master Boot Disk''' is the quest artifact for the [[Geek]] role in [[SlashTHEM]], a neutral-aligned pack of floppies that grants [[reflection]] while carried and can be invoked for [[phasing]].
-'''The Master Boot Disk''' is the quest artifact for the [[Graduate]] role in [[SlashTHEM]], a neutral-aligned pack of floppies that grants [[reflection]] while carried and can be invoked for [[phasing]]. (The Graduate role comes from a different role also called the Geek, which was renamed to avoid confusion with the NHTNG role.)
+'''The Nethack Sources''' is the [[Hacker]] quest artifact, a neutral-aligned pack of floppies that grants [[searching]], [[ESP]], and [[regeneration]] while carried. It can be [[invoke]]d to [[identify]] items, presumably by very fast [[source diving]].
 *artilist.h 459, 465