[mattmanser]

You're mis-remembering, from the horse's mouth:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/FogBugzIII.html

So Thistle, the transpiler, was written either summer 2003 or summer 2004 (it's not entirely clear if he employed the intern that summer or the next) and Wasabi came later (so 2005 is probably correct).