I often look upon various versions of Boulderdash and it saddens me a bit. I feel as though there has pretty much never been a proper port of the original game which, if I'm not mistaken, came out for the Atari 400.
I've never actually played the Atari 400 version, though I sorta imagine the version that the version that was released on the Boulder Dash EX game for the GBA was probably closest to the original version. I personally grew up playing the version that was available on the IBM.
I don't know how many of the tricks existed in the original version, though in the IBM version, I have reliably "walked past bugs" in real time while I was a child. In lower levels, the speed was slower in the IBM version, making the trick pretty easy due to the lower (and therefore more forgiving by design) framerate.
That said, I believe a proper TAS ought to entertain, and I feel this one did so quite artfully. I vote yes.
And incidentally, if anyone is interested:
The author submitted the above, regarding the dump of the ROM. He claims this is evidence of a bad dump, and calling back to my childhood memories, I believe him. I offer this to support his evidence:
This is a screenshot taken of the IBM version of the game less than an hour ago. (I/1, by that version's reckoning). I also checked levels I/2 and I/3, which are simply harder versions of the same level, and they also lack those tiles. I did not check levels I/4 or I/5, as those would require playing through A/4 ~ H/4 and playing through A/5 ~ H/5. (The above screenshot would, therefore, be the ninth level in the IBM version of the game.) That said, I sincerely doubt either of those levels had those tiles in them either, as they add nothing to the level.
I am not sure how the level labeling goes in the NES version, but the levels in the IBM version run from A/1 through P/1. Then A/2 through P/2 are harder versions of the same, all the way up to P/5. As an interesting sidenote, a number of the later caves in the NES version do not exist in the IBM version. A number of the later caves in the NES version were, however, later reused and modified for a later game in the series called "Rockford" (though that game had several new elements to it).
I believe that, unlike the NES version, the IBM version's amoeba never had a slowdown in its reproduction rate; I certainly remembering it suddenly spike after it reached a specific population, though I don't remembering it having a slowdown. I definitely remember its reproduction rate slowing to a crawl if valid tiles for reproduction are severely limited, though, regardless of its population. Another difference between the NES and IBM versions was that, in the IBM version, fireflies were not worth any points when killed; they simply exploded.
EDIT:
Just went back and studied the author's original post. He listed the level as 21-1, and from examining the labeling structure of the levels, 21-1 would equate to I/4 in the IBM version. The IBM version had caves for Boulder, Sand, Ice, and Ocean worlds, but not for Relic or Volcano worlds (those would have been levels Q ~ X, but I believe Q ~ T were reserved for single-screen bonus levels, and U ~ X just didn't exist, or weren't reachable by normal means).
This screenshot is obviously different from both yours and mine.
Regardless, I feel the NES version is a good version to use, due to the prettier graphics and the actual existence of in-game music.