tool-assisted speedrun on the Internet.
2003
2003-11-26
Bisqwit found Super Mario Bros. 3 on the Internet. It was a low-quality Windows Media Video file (wmv). The video contained the text
"super mario bross 3 time attack video" in the beginning and
"Played by もりもと @やるきなす http://soramimi.egoism.jp/ http://homepage3.nifty.com/nura/ " in the end.
Intrigued, Bisqwit went to the websites mentioned in that video and discovered that Morimoto had created more videos for games such as
Rockman,
Rockman 2, and
Gradius. Knowing some Japanese, Bisqwit studied how to play those movies, and the trails lead to the
Famtasia Famicom emulator.
2003-12
After finding that Famtasia could play those movies, Bisqwit discovered that those movies were not shown anywhere in the Internet, but that people would probably be interested in them. He was also bothered about the bad quality of the Windows Media Video file of Super Mario Bros. 3, so he started creating a
toolset that would enable him to record those videos into AVI files and publish them.
As soon he got it working, he created the website, http://bisqwit.iki.fi/jutut/nesvideos.html (an archived copy can be seen here:
http://bisqwit.iki.fi/jutut/backup-nesvideos.html) where he published those movies together with the AVIs, made downloadable with
BitTorrent.
2003-12-06 onwards
Bisqwit spent a lot of time tracking sites that were linking to the newly created NESVideos site, and seeing what was being talked about there. He registered on boards and tried to correct misconception about the movies. He created and refined the sections on the site explaining those concepts, such as the "Myths and Facts" section.
In the meantime, he expanded the content from more of Morimoto's videos, and put an invitation for users' submissions. He also started creating a few movies on his own, such as
Super Mario Bros. 2,
Super Mario Bros and
Castlevania.
Videos from the
Doom Done Quick project were also processed and published.
2004
2004-01-11
Bisqwit noticed
Arc had formed a site
http://nes.greatstreamingvideo.com/, and that it linked directly to some files provided by the NESvideos server. Bisqwit contacted him and thus began some cooperation between these two sites.
2004-01-15
The first user submission was received from
Arc. It was
Ghosts 'n Goblins. It was encoded and published the same day.
2004-01-19
The second user submission, not counting Arc's improvements to Ghosts 'n Goblins, was
Contra by Mathieu Pronovost.
From here, the submission rate started increasing, soon attracting now famous players such as Michael Fried and Jean-François Durocher (aka. Genisto).
2004-02
The amount of documentation on the site had grown so much that the site had to get a dedicated URL instead of a single
.html page. Bisqwit moved it to
http://bisqwit.iki.fi/nesvideos/ (an archived copy can be seen here:
http://bisqwit.iki.fi/jutut/nesv-old/).
2004-06-25
The site was re-written using a wiki-engine.
2006
2006-11-26
Previously the NESVideos website had been under the domain of Bisqwit's personal website,
http://bisqwit.iki.fi/. To improve the profile of the site, Bisqwit purchased a dedicated domain name for the site,
http://tasvideos.org/. Despite the different address, it still ran on the same server.
Also, the
name of the site changed. When before it was NESVideos, now it became TASVideos. The name change was mostly motivated by the increase of published movies on systems other than NES.
2008
2008-11-18
Bisqwit finds a higher calling and purpose, and decides to follow it. In an act of great humility, he states that he wants to see the community continue and thrive without his presence. He calls upon the long-time members to volunteer and take charge of the site over the coming year.
2009
2009-06-09
Bisqwit enacts a final deadline of September and states that the site must be moved by the end of the summer for tasvideos.org to continue.
2009-06-28
Nach and
adelikat take over the server and IRC channel, and begin the transfer progress.
2009-07-02
With the help of ShinyDoofy, adelikat and Nach have the new server up and running. tasvideos.org has a new home, and a new future ahead of it...
Famtasia (NES)
Snes9x (SNES)
2004-06-02
The first SNES movie was submitted (and unofficially published) by Phil & Genisto. It was
Contra 3: The Alien Wars.
2004-07-11
A new rerecording version of Snes9x v1.43 was published and officially accepted on the site.
2007-04-30
Snes9x v1.51 was released, but desync issues were not fixed until later.
2013-04-12
Runs made on Snes9x v1.43 are no longer accepted.
Gens (Genesis)
2004-05-27
Jyzero
announces a version of Gens with movie recording. The following day, basic rerecording support is added.
2004-06-07
Bisqwit
declares that Gens runs will be accepted on the site.
2004-06-10
A run of
Contra - The Hard Corps is accepted as the first Gens run on the site.
FCEU (NES)
2004-09-17
Although it was not an officially accepted emulator at the time,
a Legend of Zelda movie by Phil made using FCEU, a new emulator at its time, is published; Bisqwit rules that FCEU submissions may be accepted on a case-by-case basis.
2004-10-10
FCEU submissions are officially declared to be accepted on the site. Soon after, it was judged to be superior to Famtasia in every way, resulting in Famtasia's eventual obsoletion.
VisualBoyAdvance (GBx/GBA)
2005-01-12
Volkov
announces an initial rerecording version of VisualBoyAdvance. It eventually proves to be unreliable for sync purposes.
2005-03-27
nitsuja announces a new largely rewritten rerecording version of Visual Boy Advance in the hopes that it meets Bisqwit's requirements for rerecording capabilities.
2005-04-07
Bisqwit
announces that the site is prepared to accept VBA submissions.
2005-04-12
The first VBA movie is published:
Metroid: Zero Mission by BoltR.
Mupen64 (N64)
Dega (SMS/GG)
ZSNES (SNES)
2008-07-07
The first (and thus far only) run using ZSNES to be published is
Run Saber by Solon.
FCEUX (NES)
2008-08-04
adelikat
announces the initial release of FCEUX, intended to merge together several divergent branches of FCEU with useful TASing features (having been in development since at least
2008-05-11).
2008-08-16
Bisqwit updates the site rules to allow for FM2 submissions.
2008-08-17
The first published FCEUX run is
Double Dragon II by adelikat.
2012-11-27
With the release of FCEUX 2.2.0 containing
TAS Editor 1.0, the site now accepts FM3 submissions.
PCSX (PSX)
Mednafen (PCE)
2009-04-06
adelikat
announces a rerecording variant of Mednafen. The same day, the first submission using it appears in the queue:
Dragon Egg by adelikat.
2009-04-26
The Dragon Egg submission
is published, forming the first TurboGrafx 16/PCE run.
DeSmuMe (NDS)
FinalBurn Alpha (Arcade)
2004-07-11
blip
announces a build of FinalBurn Alpha with rerecording support. Development stagnates quickly.
2008-08-31
mz
revives blip's project with a new version of FBA-rr.
2009-06-02
FBA-rr movies are declared approved for the site.
2009-06-14
The first FBA run to be published is
Ghouls 'n' Ghosts by xipo.
Yabause (Saturn)
JPC-RR (DOS)
openMSX (MSX)
Dolphin (GC/Wii)
Hourglass (Windows)
lsnes (SNES)
libTAS (Linux)
Other
TODO: Write about
See also: