As I understand, T3 had a development strategy akin to what we’d now call “early access”, with in-dev builds being relatively widely available for years prior to the official release.
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Also the TADS Release History page has dates and downloads for a bunch of earlier 3.0.x versions? Going back to 3.0.0 on April 1, 2000.
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If so, that makes today the 23rd anniversary of TADS 3!
I think Josh’s date is the correct one, if by “actually released” you mean the first time TADS 3 was widely available. I was coding TADS 2 back then. It felt dicey, but I decided to rewrite my work-in-progress in TADS 3 (which, of course, I never finished) rather than risk being left behind.
I believe Dave Baggett coded WorldClass to simplify and add consistency to the TADS 2 library. In this sense, WorldClass was to TADS 2 what adv3Lite is to TADS 3. Before TADS 3 came along, I looked at WorldClass and thought it was…interesting, but not compelling enough to switch from the standard library. (Also, by 1999/2000 I recall sensing WorldClass to be abandoned.)
Baggett and others also formed a company called Adventions to sell IF games (perhaps using a shareware model?) He was behind the Unnkulian series. He also co-wrote +=3 to settle a rec.arts.int-fiction flame war. (Baf’s Guide: “Written as an example of how not to write games…Not meant to be played and enjoyed.”). All are in TADS 2. IFWIki says +=3 was coded with WorldClass.
Hope this helps.
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Adventions was my introduction to all IF! Played all of the Unnkulians plus Horror of Rylvania… also found and played the 3 game just because it was by Baggett. Also downloaded but never played his GC parity bit game…
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It occurred to me that WorldClass might be in the if-archive, and lo, it is there.
The documentation has a brief introduction to the differences between WorldClass and the default TADS 2 library, and some sample code.
If you’re a TADS programmer, it’s a nice way to step back in time.
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Thanks for all the helpful responses! Certainly an interesting time back then. I’m still surprised I jumped into TADS 3 so quickly and wholeheartedly!
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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…)
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Oh god, I tried to do that once. Started writing down subject-line regexps to filter out “most” of the spam. After a couple of hours my brain rebelled and I couldn’t face it any more.
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Considering what ilk of regexps one must wrote for filtering out spams, I’m unsurprised that even Zarf’s brain rebels…
I’m toying about the idea of using a bayesian filter with the stock setup (because the posts are up to 2012, the spams are 1st or 2nd generation, hence definitively in the “openly obvious” category) albeit at the risk of losing the few, if any, genuine AIF debate (this imply that sadly is nigh impossible cleansing the archive of alt.xtrek from spams…), but for me tackling the spam cleansing from r.a.i.f archive It’s a really low-priority project, more or less stuck at “feasibility analysis” stage; anyway, the spam’s Subject: are sooo obvious that is easy to skip them from the index.
Best regards from Italy,
dott. Piergiorgio.
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Is the .mbox file available for others to look at, in case they wanted a slice of the insanity pie?
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Yeah, the IF Archive has folders for both raif and rgif, including the .mbox files as well as a bunch of other stuff.
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For some early years, people were collecting and curating the posts. After that period, you have to contend with the mbox files:
http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/rec.arts.int-fiction/r.a.i-f-1996-2012.mbox.bz2
http://www.ifarchive.org/if-archive/rec.games.int-fiction/r.g.i-f-1992-2012.mbox.bz2
…which are not a fun time.
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Uh, pardon my ignorance. What is Code Amnesty Day, exactly?
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@#$^&@#$%&#$%
I have GOT to poke my head out of the TADS corner from time to time. That’s on me. I am prepared to be an early commit for SCAD II.
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There were a bunch of late entries for SCAD #1 (myself being one of them). If you have stuff laying around to share, I’d say go for it. No reason to wait a full year on a technicality.
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See, now why would you put me on blast like that??? 
By committing to a year out I was buying myself ‘clean up the comments’ time! Then you would all have to assume my coding practices are role model sharp, and diligently disciplined.
If only there was a mechanism, say for just one day, when you could post code without having to worry how it will look to others, where all your algorithmic and brute force sins might be forgiven…
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[Blesses @jjmcc with sacred XYZZY water]
Go forth and sin no more. Your crimes against mimesis have been forgiven, child.
(Statistically, we’re either around the same age or I’m younger than you, so take that with a large hunk of salt.)
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