TADS 2
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TADS 2 is the older generation of TADS, but it's still very much alive. TADS 2 is a software development environment specially designed for creating Interactive Fiction. It features a high-level, object-oriented language, and a ready-to-use library of classes providing the basic building blocks of an adventure game world.
If you're looking for the latest generation of TADS, visit our TADS 3 page. TADS 3 features a more modern programming language and a much more elaborate class library, but the trade-off is that it's a more complex system. Some people need the power and flexibility of TADS 3, while others prefer the relative simplicity of TADS 2.
The place to find the latest TADS 2 downloads is the IF-Archive in the
programming/tads2/executables directory. This directory has
many different TADS distributions, but you'll probably only need
one. Here are our specific recommendations for a few selected systems:
Windows
(all versions from Windows 95 on): download the Windows HTML TADS
Player Kit for playing games; if you also want to write your own
games, download the Author's Kit for Windows. Download from the
IF Archive. Note that there are two versions available: the Full
Documentation version, which includes the TADS Author's Manual
and the Parser Manual; and the No Documentation version, which
includes only the software. The No Doc version is a little smaller,
so if you already have a copy of the documentation, you can save some
time by downloading the software only.
Macintosh:
For Mac OS X, there are two excellent interpreter options: Tor
Andersson's Spatterlight, and Nikos
Chantziaras's FrobTADS. To write your own
games, you'll need the FrobTADS compiler. For Mac OS 9 and
earlier, have a look at HyperTADS, a full Multimedia
interpreter for Mac OS 9; it's a little out of date as of this
writing, but it should play most TADS 2 games correctly.
Linux: You should use FrobTADS. Get the interpreter to play games,
and the compiler package if you want to write your own.
MS-DOS: There are several packages for MS-DOS users.
If your computer has a 286 or later CPU, you can use the "protected
mode" version, which gives you access to memory installed in your
system beyond the DOS 640k limit. PCs with the original 8088 or 8086
CPU can't run in protected mode, and some older 286-based machines
have problems doing so. If you can't run the protected-mode version,
there's a standard DOS version available; this limits you to the
standard DOS 640k, but only a very few TADS 2 games are so large that
this is a problem.
Download from the
IF Archive.
Other Unix
platforms: the version to use is FrobTADS.
BeOS:
FrobTADS is the version to use for
BeOS.
If you don't see your system listed above, check the Archive; executables for several other platforms are available and are easy to find in the Archive. Here are some more specific notes on how to pick a version for your system:
- TADS has been ported to many different computers, including MS-DOS, Windows (95, 98, ME, NT, 2000), Macintosh, Amiga, BeOS, Psion, and many versions of Unix. You'll only need to download the version for the type of computer you're using.
- For some types of computers, TADS is distributed in two main package types: one for people who want to write their own games, and another for people who want only to play TADS games written by others. The play-only version leaves out the authoring tools, so it's smaller and quicker to download. If there's only one package for your computer, it probably includes all of the programs for both the authoring and playing.
- For Windows and Macintosh, you'll find the traditional text-only version as well as a multimedia version, also known as HTML TADS or HyperTADS. The multimedia versions are upwardly compatible with the text versions, but provide additional capabilities for displaying graphics, playing sounds and music, and controlling text formatting with fonts, colors, sizes, styles, alignment, and other effects. The multimedia versions are "universal" - in other words, they're compatible with all TADS games, whether written with multimedia extensions or not - so there's no need to download the text-only version when a multimedia version is available, unless you just prefer the look-and-feel of the text version and prefer to use it for games that don't have any graphics.
You can view and search the official TADS 2 manuals on-line on our TADS 2 Bookshelf page.
The TADS Author's Manual is the official documentation for TADS. You can download this from the IF-Archive's programming/tads2/manuals directory. The manual is available in several formats, including PDF, Tex, and HTML. You might also want to pick up the TADS Parser Manual, which is a supplement that completely overhauls the sections in the Author's Manual that cover the player command parser, bringing it up to date with the latest parser features and presenting the material in a more organized fashion.
Mark Engelberg's TADS Tutorial is an excellent way to get started with TADS. The Tutorial leads you through the process of creating a game, including all of the nuts-and-bolts details like setting up a text editor and running the compiler, and gives you a series of "lab assignments" so that you can apply what you learn in each chapter immediately. The Tutorial is aimed at DOS/Windows users, but that's only important in a few places. Note that the files are in Microsoft Word (".doc") format, so you'll need Word or a Word-compatible file viewer.
Authors might also find it helpful to see some example source code. You can find a great deal of sample code in the programming/tads2/examples directory at the IF-Archive. You can also find the complete source code to a few dozen games - some quite substantial - in the games/source/tads directory.
The IF-Archive has a large collection of freeware and shareware games for downloading. You can find the TADS games in the games/tads folder.
In addition, some of the most acclaimed TADS games were originally entries in the annual IF Competition. These games can be found in the competition directories at the IF-Archive:
The competition directories from 1997 onward are organized by system type on the IF-Archive. For '95 and '96, you'll have to read the game descriptions to find out which games were written with TADS.
If the sheer number of games available through the links above is too overwhelming, you might find some of the review sites listed in our links page helpful in sorting things out.
If you're looking for the very latest working builds, they're often available here on tads.org before they're uploaded to the IF Archive. Be warned, though, that the latest working builds are often less stable than the official releases - they're strictly for experienced developers, and are mostly for use in porting TADS to new systems or for obtaining fixes to specific bugs you've encountered. ("Working build" doesn't mean it's not broken; it means we're actively working on it, and it's not yet ready for official release.) If you're using TADS to write or play a game, you should usually steer clear of these and opt for the official releases from the IF Archive instead.
If you're still interested in the latest after reading those warnings, you can look at the TADS 2 Patches Page for the latest source downloads.
If you're looking for TADS 3, which is a newer generation of the system with many improvements, visit our TADS 3 page.
TADS is freeware, which means that you can download it and use it without charge. The TADS software is copyrighted (it's not in the public domain), and there are a few restrictions on what you can do with it, but there there is no cost for using TADS and there are no restrictions on what you can do with games you create with it - you are free to give your games away for free, distribute them as shareware, sell them through commercial publishers, hide them in the bottom of a drawer, or anything else you can think of.
Each download package includes a license text file with full details.