They accidentally fixed them when they changed the terrain generator in Beta 1.8. The only way they generated at all was because of an accident in the first place.
EDIT: In response to Phycozz, the invisible wall was added later to prevent people from going to the buggy "fake" chunks that generated where the far lands used to be.
Even the current 30 million block limit is artificial; you can check the actual code yourself (search for 30000000; this is for 1.6.4, before they added a wall, explaining how "fake chunks" happen; the code simply returns 0 instead of a block ID, etc, after that point); there is no viable explanation for such a limit in terms of what variables can handle; a 32 bit integer can range from +/- 2.147 billion, so they added that limit probably just to have a hard limit on world size - not that anybody would ever have a problem with it.
Also, I suspect they removed the original Far Lands by going from single-precision to double-precision variables; the accuracy of single-precision is close to the 12.5 million block limit; double-precision has far more accuracy, enabling a vastly larger world size (millions of times) before the math goofs up or integers overflow*. Of note, some things still goof up because they use single-precision variables, such as the position of torch flames (in 1.6 anyway), but when I tested it I didn't get any of the jittering present in the Far Lands or Bust videos (your position uses double-precision now).
The hard limit where chunks are overwritten is at X/Z of ±34,359,738,368, which is about 23% of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. At X/Z of ±2,147,483,648 (crashes at 2,147,483,439), item positions, mob pathfinding and other things using 32-bit integers will overflow and act strangely, usually resulting in Minecraft crashing.
I honestly think that it’s because of lag. I tried to enter a world in Minecraft 1.7, And it took very long to load. I suppose Mojang removed it so that low-quality devices could have a better experience or even play at all.
I honestly think that it’s because of lag. I tried to enter a world in Minecraft 1.7, And it took very long to load. I suppose Mojang removed it so that low-quality devices could have a better experience or even play at all.
This doesn't even matter since they only generate over 12 million blocks out, and in fact, the fix increased the number of calculations required to generate terrain, even if only slightly (my old reply was incorrect, the actual fix for the Far Lands was the addition of a few lines of code to prevent integer overflow, as I later found out), otherwise, simply nobody will ever get that far out without hacks (not even with in-game cheats since commands weren't added to singleplayer until 1.3.1), or an absurdly long time spent walking there, with no means to speed things up other than the Nether, even e.g. elytra would take ages). The majority of players back then probably never even went more than a few hundred blocks from spawn / near 0,0; I mean, why? No structures, only a few biomes, which were very small, terrain might have been more interesting and variable but no actual mountain biomes or anything, and the only forms of transportation useful for exploring were walking (no sprinting) and boats (on very tiny "oceans"; here is a map of a Beta 1.7 seed, and some people thought that release 1.7 made them too small). Even in modern versions 12.5 million blocks is a long, long way, especially if you explore in all directions.
Old versions, especially before 1.3.1, are relatively much slower on modern hardware and/or benefit from it much less since they have no multithreading whatsoever, which is why you may have heard that the game is singlethreaded / used only one CPU core, which hasn't been true for over a decade, more so in newer versions; Beta 1.7, as well as Beta 1.8, runs horribly on even modern systems (I constantly see people asking how to fix lag spikes / stuttering / other issues on a Reddit for old versions). When I modded 1.6.4 to remove the fix for the Far Lands it didn't have anywhere near the amount of lag that people often said that Beta had (back then I had a very old computer with hardware from 2005-2006; I recreated it more recently and noted an increase in entity count from items (it dropped back down after a few minutes) but it was relatively minor, much of the lag in Beta was actually due to falling sand not properly falling and remaining as an entity, which was fixed at a later point (it is still buggy in 1.6.4 but not like it was in Beta).
DANCE IT OUT! WOOOOO
EDIT: In response to Phycozz, the invisible wall was added later to prevent people from going to the buggy "fake" chunks that generated where the far lands used to be.
Also, I suspect they removed the original Far Lands by going from single-precision to double-precision variables; the accuracy of single-precision is close to the 12.5 million block limit; double-precision has far more accuracy, enabling a vastly larger world size (millions of times) before the math goofs up or integers overflow*. Of note, some things still goof up because they use single-precision variables, such as the position of torch flames (in 1.6 anyway), but when I tested it I didn't get any of the jittering present in the Far Lands or Bust videos (your position uses double-precision now).
*From the Wiki:
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?
Kudos.
I honestly think that it’s because of lag. I tried to enter a world in Minecraft 1.7, And it took very long to load. I suppose Mojang removed it so that low-quality devices could have a better experience or even play at all.
This doesn't even matter since they only generate over 12 million blocks out, and in fact, the fix increased the number of calculations required to generate terrain, even if only slightly (my old reply was incorrect, the actual fix for the Far Lands was the addition of a few lines of code to prevent integer overflow, as I later found out), otherwise, simply nobody will ever get that far out without hacks (not even with in-game cheats since commands weren't added to singleplayer until 1.3.1), or an absurdly long time spent walking there, with no means to speed things up other than the Nether, even e.g. elytra would take ages). The majority of players back then probably never even went more than a few hundred blocks from spawn / near 0,0; I mean, why? No structures, only a few biomes, which were very small, terrain might have been more interesting and variable but no actual mountain biomes or anything, and the only forms of transportation useful for exploring were walking (no sprinting) and boats (on very tiny "oceans"; here is a map of a Beta 1.7 seed, and some people thought that release 1.7 made them too small). Even in modern versions 12.5 million blocks is a long, long way, especially if you explore in all directions.
Old versions, especially before 1.3.1, are relatively much slower on modern hardware and/or benefit from it much less since they have no multithreading whatsoever, which is why you may have heard that the game is singlethreaded / used only one CPU core, which hasn't been true for over a decade, more so in newer versions; Beta 1.7, as well as Beta 1.8, runs horribly on even modern systems (I constantly see people asking how to fix lag spikes / stuttering / other issues on a Reddit for old versions). When I modded 1.6.4 to remove the fix for the Far Lands it didn't have anywhere near the amount of lag that people often said that Beta had (back then I had a very old computer with hardware from 2005-2006; I recreated it more recently and noted an increase in entity count from items (it dropped back down after a few minutes) but it was relatively minor, much of the lag in Beta was actually due to falling sand not properly falling and remaining as an entity, which was fixed at a later point (it is still buggy in 1.6.4 but not like it was in Beta).
TheMasterCaver's First World - possibly the most caved-out world in Minecraft history - includes world download.
TheMasterCaver's World - my own version of Minecraft largely based on my views of how the game should have evolved since 1.6.4.
Why do I still play in 1.6.4?