Wow! Avida is still around? I remember trying to get it to run on my Mac IIci AUX box in the mid 90s. Their revision history page has datestamps going back to 1998, but I was playing with it at least three years earlier. The publications page has articles going back to 1994. I think it was C.T. Brown who introduced me to Avida after I heard him give a talk explaining how they 'evolved' software to add a pair of numbers.
Looks like things have progressed a bit since then.