# Apple

% 

Name

apple

Base price

7 zm

Nutrition

50

Turns to eat

1

Weight

2

Conduct

vegan

An apple is a fruit that is suitable for vegans and vegetarians.

Contents

1 Generation
2 Effects
3 Strategy
4 Messages
5 Origin
6 Encyclopaedia entry
7 References

Generation
Healers and Monks start with at least 5 apples, and Knights start with at least 10 apples.

Effects
When eaten, apples provide 50 nutrition. Pets that are herbivorous will consider it a treat, and it can be used to tame horses; domestic cats and dogs are rendered peaceful.
In NetHack 3.6.0 and later versions, eating a cursed apple will cause you to fall asleep for 20-30 turns if you lack sleep resistance.[1]

Strategy
Apples are best saved for taming or feeding pets; knights in particular will want to prioritize taming their steed. However, if food proves especially scarce, then roles that start with apples may need to tide themselves over using them until permafood can be found.
Healers, Knights, and Monks might need to eat their apples before they can find other food.

Messages
You hear sinister laughter as you fall asleep...
You ate a cursed apple and fell asleep.
You fall asleep.
As above, while deaf.
Heigh-ho, ho-hum, I think I'll skip work today.
As above, while a dwarf and hallucinating.
Some YAFMs appear if you eat an apple or pear in NetHack while playing on a Unix or Mac OS system:[2]

Message

Effect

"Core dumped." (Unix, not hallucinating)

No effect

When a Unix program performs an illegal operation, the kernel shuts down the program, and the program often dumps a core file for loading into debuggers; the pun is that apples are usually dumped once the core is the only thing left.

"Segmentation fault -- core dumped." (75/100 chance)
"Bus error -- core dumped." (24/100 chance)
"Yo' mama -- core dumped." (1/100 chance)
(Unix, hallucinating)

No effect

As above, but these error messages are more 'realistic' - an actual "core dumped" error on Unix comes with the cause of the crash.

"Delicious!  Must be a Macintosh!" (Mac OS before Mac OS X which is Unix-like)

No effect

Apple Computer named their Macintosh computers after a real type of apple.

Origin
The cursed apple's effect in post is a reference to Snow White and the poisoned apple. The Unix-specific messages appear to be derived from joke Unix documentation that originates in a Usenet post not archived by Google Groups. The presence of apples in a Healer's starting inventory may be a reference to the aphorism "an apple a day keeps the doctor away."

Encyclopaedia entry

NEWTONIAN, adj.  Pertaining to a philosophy of the universe invented by Newton, who discovered that an apple will fall to the ground, but was unable to say why.  His successors and disciples have advanced so far as to be able to say when.

[ The Devil's Dictionary, by Ambrose Bierce ] 

References

↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 3.6.0, line 2133

↑ src/eat.c in NetHack 3.4.3, line 1423

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It may contain text specific to NetHack 3.6.4. Information on this page may be out of date.
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