TADS timeline

Authoring TADS
1

If my math is right 2025 is the 25th anniversary of TADS 3 (and the 35th of TADS). To celebrate perhaps we can build a timeline of notable events?

1990 TADS 1.0
early 90s Adventions games released
1995 first IF Comp, winner of TADS Divsion Uncle Zebulon’s Will by Magnus Olsson
1996 TADS freeware release
1996 first XYZZY awards, TADS winners: Small World by Andrew Pontius, Frobozz Magic Support by Nate Cull, Kissing the Buddha’s Feet by Leon Lin
1996 MaxTADS released by Andrew Plotkin
2000 first TADS IF Comp winner, Kaged by Ian Finley
2000 first TADS 3 early adopter kit
2003 first QTads beta by Nikos Chantziaras
2005 FrobTADS released by Nikos Chantziaras
2006 first general release TADS 3
2011 TADS 3.1 (webui release)
2012 adv3lite released by Eric Eve
2021 vscode-tads3tools released by Tomas Öberg
2021 Parchment adds TADS support
2021 TADS cookbook and periplus created by Jim Nelson
2021-22 first Winter TADS Jam
2024 tads.dev created

Please share notable releases of games, code, docs, or anything else that you think of.

sources

» TADS The Digital Antiquarian
Release History
ISSUE #33 - June 25, 2003 - SPAG
Search for Games.
Search for Games.
The Annual IF Competition - IFWiki
First Public Beta Release of adv3Lite.
Vscode-tads3tools extension release 0.6.4.
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.int-fiction/c/jU1-kf02f6A/m/kXosJWbzwmMJ.
The new Parchment.
Winter TADS Jam 2021/2022 - IFWiki.
XYZZY Awards 1996 - IFWiki.
frobtads/doc/ChangeLog.old at master · realnc/frobtads · GitHub.
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.int-fiction/c/Um8-VlBGUPQ/m/akewt5XSm_cJ.
History for README.md - tads-intfic/tads3-website · GitHub.
TADS 3 recipe wiki or site?.
adv3Lite periplus.
https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.int-fiction/c/iY4jG8p_JbA/m/jpMkJFDbaVAJ.

12 Likes
2

There’s the Winter TADS Jam 2021/2022, which might be the first TADS-specific comp/jam?

5 Likes
3

First XYZZY win?

5 Likes
4

@SomeOne2

Judging by IFDB, the first TADS 2 winners were from the inaugural XYZZYs, with Small World, Frobozz Magic Support, and Kissing the Buddha’s Feet.

First TADS 3 winner is The Elysium Enigma in the 2006 XYZZYs.

6 Likes
5

Thanks all. Does anyone know what was the first mobile interpreter that played TADS games? Hunky Punk? Frotz iOS?

Also I’m not sure FrobTADS started in 2005, maybe @RealNC can say?

1 Like
6

I’m trying to remember when I first released MaxTADS (the Mac Classic interpreter).

I don’t have a record of 1.0, but 1.0.4 was released in July 1998. And I was living in Pittsburgh, so it was late 1997 or early 1998.

I think I did that as soon as the TADS 2 source was released under an open-source license. The notes above say “1996: TADS freeware release” but I’m not sure that’s right. Or maybe there was a delay between dropping the shareware designation and releasing the source code.

5 Likes
7

This is from 1996, https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.int-fiction/c/iY4jG8p_JbA/m/jpMkJFDbaVAJ. Was this the first Mac TADS interpreter?

1 Like
8

If it helps, the Mac post-competition release of The Frenetic Five vs. Sturm und Drang appears to be bundled with MaxTADS 1.0.1.
The IF Archive timestamp is 1998-02-01; the embedded StuffIt timestamp is 1998-01-29; presumably these place a later bound on the MaxTADS release.

(I happen to have been down this rabbithole recently cataloguing early IF Comp works.)

…actually, I’ve got r*if archives here. It looks like 1.0.1 was the first public release of MaxTADS, announced on 1996-11-05. (Having announced an intention to implement it as soon as the TADS system was opened up, 1996-10-16.)

1 Like
9

Ok, thanks. I see I was wrong about where I was living when I did it!

10

Not my scene at the time, but the threads about the possibility of MaxTADS contrast it with “the standard Mac TADS runtime”; so no.

2 Likes