I'm not sure when it was added, but version rd-20090515 is now available from the version selection menu in the official Minecraft launcher. It is between rd-132328 and rd-160052. I'm not sure what is different about it though, compared to version rd-161348. These 2 versions appear to behave identically (controls, game window size, etc, it's all the same). It may be a duplicate, I'm not sure (one may have internal code optimizations that the other doesn't, but doesn't have an obvious effect on the game's behavior). And even if it's not a duplicate, I think it may be appearing at the wrong position in the menu. A feature that version rd-20090515 has, the ability to place small bushes as a block type, is not available in the very next entry in that version selection menu (rd-160052) but is available in the entry after that (rd-161348). In fact, the level.dat file created by rd-161348 or re-20090515, if you have placed a bush in the level, will crash the game if you are running version rd-160052, as it doesn't support bushes. To select which type of block you place in these old versions of MC, you use the number keys (not numeric keypad), and the bush is number 6. Incorrect placement in the list, means an error in the JSON file, as the order it appears in the list depends on the release date field in the JSON file. Whoever at the Mojang company typed out the JSON file for this version of MC, may have typed in the wrong release date.
Ok, I just used HxD hex editor software, and compared the JAR files for rd-20090515 and rd-161348 using its file compare feature, which compares byte-by-byte 2 files and tells you if there are any differences. The 2 JAR files were identical! I don't know how Notch or one of his employees made such a mistake adding it like that. Maybe they put the wrong JAR file on his server for this version, or maybe somebody sent them this version from their own PC and told them that this was a version not yet included in the launcher, and they just assumed that the gamer who sent them their archived JAR file was correct that it was in fact a not-yet-released version. Whatever the case, there is clearly a mistake here, and I'd like to be able to contact somebody at the Mojang company and notify them of this mistake. What is the best way to contact them?
It would be great if the TRUE version of rd-20090515 was in fact somewhere on Mojang's server, just placed in the wrong folder by accident, but I've got a bad feeling that it may be simply an incorrectly labeled JAR file, and that no new releases of old-alpha versions will be forthcoming any time soon.
Upon further research, using the Gamepedia Wiki for Minecraft, I found that there's a couple mistakes with this new version. Not only is rd-20090515.jar exactly identical to rd-161348.jar, but rd-20090515 isn't even a valid version number. Instead, it's a release date (2009/05/15). And there's one more error, even if he did intend to label that one by date instead of version number. That date does not correspond to the release date of the JAR file that it is a duplicate of (rd-161348.jar) but instead corresponds to the the release date of a completely different version. The date 2009/05/15 is the date that version rd-160052 was released. The version that rd-20090515.jar is a duplicate of is actually rd-161348, which was released on 2009/05/16, which was one day after the release of rd-160052.
And I also did some research into the .json files, and noted that some of them have the incorrect release dates in them, which puts them in the WRONG ORDER in the launcher's version select menu. For example, version c0.0.13a comes before c0.0.13a_3 in the actual timeline of the game's development, but the corresponding .json files end up causing version c0.0.13a to be positioned in the version select menu at a position that suggests that c0.0.13a is NEWER than c0.0.13a_03. Using the release dates listed in the Minecraft wiki, I corrected the .json files, putting these entries in the version select menu in the correct order. However, the moment I click the Play button to play the game, while the correct version does start, it also re-downloads the .json file (it must use a hash to check if any of the files were altered, and re-downloads any altered files, even if the alteration corrects an error in the file). This means, that the next time after that, that I check the version select menu in the launcher, these 2 versions are out of order once again.
I'm seriously starting to wonder, who in the Mojang company is responsible for releasing these old-alpha versions of Minecraft? And how do they end up making these glaring mistakes? And how do I contact them to report the errors so that they can fix them? Unlike most software companies, Mojang does NOT have an email address that you can use to send reports of errors in their software.
(By the way, Notch left Mojang back in late 2014.)
Thanks. I just found that. It seems they've updated their website recently. I've now written them about the new old-alpha version added being a duplicate. I hope they fix that, and if they really did have something new to add, but simply accidentally put the wrong file or folder on their server, that the actual CORRECT entry be added soon, so that I can have a truly NEW version of old-alpha MC to play. Why do I care about the most ancient versions? Because it's cool to get to see step by step, how game development progressed and experience what each version is like when playing it.
As for Notch leaving. I haven't heard about that before. Why did he leave? Who's running the company now? What's Notch doing now? Does this mean that he also took his development computer with him, that had all the oldest files on its harddrive, so that any of the oldest development versions (such as Alpha, Indev, and several of the Infdev versions too) that have not yet been put in the launcher, will now NEVER get put in the launcher?
Thanks. I just found that. It seems they've updated their website recently. I've now written them about the new old-alpha version added being a duplicate. I hope they fix that, and if they really did have something new to add, but simply accidentally put the wrong file or folder on their server, that the actual CORRECT entry be added soon, so that I can have a truly NEW version of old-alpha MC to play. Why do I care about the most ancient versions? Because it's cool to get to see step by step, how game development progressed and experience what each version is like when playing it.
As for Notch leaving. I haven't heard about that before. Why did he leave? Who's running the company now? What's Notch doing now? Does this mean that he also took his development computer with him, that had all the oldest files on its harddrive, so that any of the oldest development versions (such as Alpha, Indev, and several of the Infdev versions too) that have not yet been put in the launcher, will now NEVER get put in the launcher?
He mostly left because he didn't want the popularity. According to Notch, "I’ve become a symbol. I don’t want to be a symbol, responsible for something huge that I don’t understand, that I don’t want to work on." (His full blog post can be found here.) I'm pretty sure he's since moved on to his own personal endeavors (mostly making small games, which is what Minecraft was intended to be initially). I have no idea if he took the older development versions with him. For all intents and purposes, Jeb is running Mojang at this point.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings, and I hate people like that."-Tom Lehrer
I'm not sure when it was added, but version rd-20090515 is now available from the version selection menu in the official Minecraft launcher. It is between rd-132328 and rd-160052. I'm not sure what is different about it though, compared to version rd-161348. These 2 versions appear to behave identically (controls, game window size, etc, it's all the same). It may be a duplicate, I'm not sure (one may have internal code optimizations that the other doesn't, but doesn't have an obvious effect on the game's behavior). And even if it's not a duplicate, I think it may be appearing at the wrong position in the menu. A feature that version rd-20090515 has, the ability to place small bushes as a block type, is not available in the very next entry in that version selection menu (rd-160052) but is available in the entry after that (rd-161348). In fact, the level.dat file created by rd-161348 or re-20090515, if you have placed a bush in the level, will crash the game if you are running version rd-160052, as it doesn't support bushes. To select which type of block you place in these old versions of MC, you use the number keys (not numeric keypad), and the bush is number 6. Incorrect placement in the list, means an error in the JSON file, as the order it appears in the list depends on the release date field in the JSON file. Whoever at the Mojang company typed out the JSON file for this version of MC, may have typed in the wrong release date.
Ok, I just used HxD hex editor software, and compared the JAR files for rd-20090515 and rd-161348 using its file compare feature, which compares byte-by-byte 2 files and tells you if there are any differences. The 2 JAR files were identical! I don't know how Notch or one of his employees made such a mistake adding it like that. Maybe they put the wrong JAR file on his server for this version, or maybe somebody sent them this version from their own PC and told them that this was a version not yet included in the launcher, and they just assumed that the gamer who sent them their archived JAR file was correct that it was in fact a not-yet-released version. Whatever the case, there is clearly a mistake here, and I'd like to be able to contact somebody at the Mojang company and notify them of this mistake. What is the best way to contact them?
It would be great if the TRUE version of rd-20090515 was in fact somewhere on Mojang's server, just placed in the wrong folder by accident, but I've got a bad feeling that it may be simply an incorrectly labeled JAR file, and that no new releases of old-alpha versions will be forthcoming any time soon.
Upon further research, using the Gamepedia Wiki for Minecraft, I found that there's a couple mistakes with this new version. Not only is rd-20090515.jar exactly identical to rd-161348.jar, but rd-20090515 isn't even a valid version number. Instead, it's a release date (2009/05/15). And there's one more error, even if he did intend to label that one by date instead of version number. That date does not correspond to the release date of the JAR file that it is a duplicate of (rd-161348.jar) but instead corresponds to the the release date of a completely different version. The date 2009/05/15 is the date that version rd-160052 was released. The version that rd-20090515.jar is a duplicate of is actually rd-161348, which was released on 2009/05/16, which was one day after the release of rd-160052.
And I also did some research into the .json files, and noted that some of them have the incorrect release dates in them, which puts them in the WRONG ORDER in the launcher's version select menu. For example, version c0.0.13a comes before c0.0.13a_3 in the actual timeline of the game's development, but the corresponding .json files end up causing version c0.0.13a to be positioned in the version select menu at a position that suggests that c0.0.13a is NEWER than c0.0.13a_03. Using the release dates listed in the Minecraft wiki, I corrected the .json files, putting these entries in the version select menu in the correct order. However, the moment I click the Play button to play the game, while the correct version does start, it also re-downloads the .json file (it must use a hash to check if any of the files were altered, and re-downloads any altered files, even if the alteration corrects an error in the file). This means, that the next time after that, that I check the version select menu in the launcher, these 2 versions are out of order once again.
I'm seriously starting to wonder, who in the Mojang company is responsible for releasing these old-alpha versions of Minecraft? And how do they end up making these glaring mistakes? And how do I contact them to report the errors so that they can fix them? Unlike most software companies, Mojang does NOT have an email address that you can use to send reports of errors in their software.
Try this: https://help.mojang.com/customer/portal/emails/new
(By the way, Notch left Mojang back in late 2014.)
"I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings, and I hate people like that." -Tom Lehrer
Thanks. I just found that. It seems they've updated their website recently. I've now written them about the new old-alpha version added being a duplicate. I hope they fix that, and if they really did have something new to add, but simply accidentally put the wrong file or folder on their server, that the actual CORRECT entry be added soon, so that I can have a truly NEW version of old-alpha MC to play. Why do I care about the most ancient versions? Because it's cool to get to see step by step, how game development progressed and experience what each version is like when playing it.
As for Notch leaving. I haven't heard about that before. Why did he leave? Who's running the company now? What's Notch doing now? Does this mean that he also took his development computer with him, that had all the oldest files on its harddrive, so that any of the oldest development versions (such as Alpha, Indev, and several of the Infdev versions too) that have not yet been put in the launcher, will now NEVER get put in the launcher?
He mostly left because he didn't want the popularity. According to Notch, "I’ve become a symbol. I don’t want to be a symbol, responsible for something huge that I don’t understand, that I don’t want to work on." (His full blog post can be found here.) I'm pretty sure he's since moved on to his own personal endeavors (mostly making small games, which is what Minecraft was intended to be initially). I have no idea if he took the older development versions with him. For all intents and purposes, Jeb is running Mojang at this point.
"I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings, and I hate people like that." -Tom Lehrer