I’ll look later into the “Great Chronicle of IF” (that is, the r.a.i.f archives, whose I manage to turn the 350+MB .mbox file in a more or less browseable format… I’m still hunting for a mean of pruning out the aughties debate from the spam (applying eyeball mk.I on 120.000 posts is out of question, period), but what matter here is:
[Announce] TADS 3 preview release
Subject: [Announce] TADS 3 preview release
From: "Mike Roberts" <mjr-SEENOTE@hotmail.com>
Date: 2000/04/01
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction
Organization: SBC Internet Services
Gunther Schmidl wrote and suggested that I should create a fake HTML TADS
release whose sole new feature is the much-needed <BLINK> attribute, as an
April Fool's joke. Great idea, but I thought it might be even more amusing
to create an entire fake TADS 3 release.
On ftp.gmd.de, in incoming/if-archive, you'll find these files...
tads_authkit_300.exe - mock-up TADS 3 author's kit, self-installing,
for Windows 95/98/NT
tads_300.zip - fake ZIP file version of above
tads_src_300.zip - simulated TADS 3 source code
I included the zip file version (tads_300.zip) for non-Windows users who
might at least wish to look at the falsified documentation included.
This release has no adventure game library, so it's not ready for anyone who
wants to start writing a game with it - you should stick with TADS 2.5.2 for
that. However, the system portion is starting to settle down, and I think
it's getting to the point where it might be of some general interest here.
In addition, it's far enough along that anyone interested in writing their
own complete alternative library could start immediately; indeed, my own
plan is to turn next to creating the official library. While I don't
anticipate a lot of sweeping, incompatible changes over the short term, it's
still possible that some might turn out to be necessary; so if you do start
actively writing code with this release, please let me know so I can keep
you apprised (or appraised, as they say in the real estate business) of new
developments.
I haven't made a lot of public announcements about TADS 3 in the past, to
avoid the risk that the project would turn into vaporware, but it's now far
enough along that I'm cautiously optimistic that something will come of it.
So, if you aren't sure what TADS 3 is all about, you can look at
<old, no more functional, link> for an overview.
and
[Announce] TADS 3.0.1 uploaded
Subject: [Announce] TADS 3.0.1 uploaded
From: "Mike Roberts" <mjr-SEENOTE@hotmail.com>
Date: 2000/06/17
Newsgroups: rec.arts.int-fiction, rec.games.int-fiction
Organization: SBC Internet Services
I've just uploaded TADS 3.0.1 to ftp://ftp.gmd.de/incoming/if-archive. This
is another "early adopter" release, in that the library still isn't ready.
This version has numerous small improvements; the included change log
(changes.htm) provides details.
For those wondering about the status of TADS 3, I am still not ready to
predict a completion schedule, but progress is being made. Right now I'm
working on the library; much of the world model is in place, and I'm
beginning work on the command execution system.
The files are:
tads_authkit_301.exe - TADS 3 Author's Kit for Windows 95/NT
tads_301.zip - TADS 3 compiler/tools/documentation for Windows 95/NT
tads_src_301.zip - source code
(tads_301.zip contains the same files as tads_authkit_301.exe, but packaged
as a zip archive for non-Windows users who want to download it to look at
the documentation and other auxiliary files.)
--Mike
whose points that 3.0 and 3.0.1 release was sneak prewiews of sort, lacking the adv3 library. But I can’t figure when was fully released, for now, because, well, there’s a sort of Y2k+ bug in RFC 822 the format of the Date: field, and many early aughties thread are not in the correct sequence (I use a program named mhonarc(1), whose produced a workable albeit not-so-chronological HTML threaded index similiar to the one generated by Todd Nathan in 1996…)
HTH and
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
(now cooling down this CPU…)