Behold, mortal, the origins of NetHack...

Jay Fenlason wrote the original Hack with help from Kenny Woodland,
Mike Thome, and Jon Payne.

Andries Brouwer did a major re-write, transforming Hack into a very different
game, and published (at least) three versions (1.0.1, 1.0.2, and 1.0.3) for
UNIX(tm) machines to the Usenet.

Don G. Kneller ported Hack 1.0.3 to Microsoft(tm) C and MS-DOS(tm), producing
PC HACK 1.01e, added support for DEC Rainbow graphics in version 1.03g, and
went on to produce at least four more versions (3.0, 3.2, 3.51, and 3.6).

R. Black ported PC HACK 3.51 to Lattice(tm) C and the Atari 520/1040ST,
producing ST Hack 1.03.

Mike Stephenson merged these various versions back together, incorporating
many of the added features, and produced NetHack version 1.4.  He then
coordinated a cast of thousands in enhancing and debugging NetHack 1.4 and 
released NetHack versions 2.2 and 2.3.  Later, he coordinated a major rewrite
of the game, heading a team which included Ken Arromdee, Jean-Christophe
Collet, Steve Creps, Eric Hendrickson, Izchak Miller, Eric S. Raymond, John 
Rupley, Mike Threepoint, and Janet Walz, to produce NetHack 3.0. 

Olaf Seibert ported NetHack 2.3 and 3.0 to the Amiga.

Eric R. Smith ported NetHack 3.0 to the Atari.

Timo Hakulinen ported NetHack 3.0 to OS/2.

 
From time to time, some depraved individual out there in netland sends a
particularly intriguing modification to help out with the game.  The Gods of
the Dungeon sometimes make note of the names of the worst of these miscreants
in this, the list of Dungeoneers:

    Tom Almy                  Bruce Holloway         Izchak Miller
    Ken Arromdee              Richard P. Hughey      Gil Neiger
    Eric Backus               Del Lamb               Eric S. Raymond
    John S. Bien              Greg Laskin            John Rupley
    Ralf Brown                Steve Linhart          Kevin Sweet
    Jean-Christophe Collet    Benson I. Margulies    Scott R. Turner
    Steve Creps               Roland McGrath         Janet Walz
    Eric Hendrickson          Bruce Mewborne