Four years ago today, I released the first version of ComputerCraft for Minecraft version 1.0. Today, thanks to some generous sponsors, I’m releasing the first version of the mod for Minecraft 1.8! As well as targeting a new Minecraft version, this new version of ComputerCraft features inter-dimensional modems, international text support, new graphical capabilities, and many new possibilities for Command Computers. Read on!

Monitor image made using the BLittle API

Downloads

• ComputerCraft 1.76

ComputerCraft 1.76 requires Minecraft version 1.8 with an up to date 1.8 version of Minecraft Forge installed. Once you’ve installed Forge, drop the ComputerCraft Jar file into your .minecraft/mods/ directory, and launch Minecraft with the new Forge profile.

Changelog

• Ported to Minecraft 1.8
• Added Ender Modems for cross-dimensional communication
• Fixed handling of 8-bit characters. All the characters in the ISO 8859-1 codepage can now be displayed
• Added some extra graphical characters in the unused character positions, including a suite of characters for Teletext style drawing
• Added support for the new commands in Minecraft 1.8 to the Command Computer
• The return values of turtle.inspect() and commands.getBlockInfo() now include blockstate information
• Added commands.getBlockInfos() function for Command Computers
• Added new “peripherals” program
• Replaced the “_CC_VERSION” and “_MC_VERSION” constants with a new “_HOST” constant
• Shortened the length of time that “Ctrl+T”, “Ctrl+S” and “Ctrl+R” must be held down to terminate, shutdown or reboot the computer
• textutils.serialiseJSON() now takes an optional parameter allowing it to produce JSON text with unquoted object keys. This is used by all autogenerated methods in the “commands” api except for “title” and “tellraw”
• Fixed many bugs

Special Thanks

Porting ComputerCraft from Minecraft 1.7.10 to Minecraft 1.8 was a huge task, requiring approximately 200 manhours of work, fixing 1,736 compile errors, and completely rewriting large portions of the code. This time investment would not have been possible without the financial support of two generous sponsors:

• Minecraft U
  Minecraft U teaches problem solving and programming techniques in a safe, encouraging ecosystem centered around Minecraft.
   
• Deep Space
  Deep Space has been turning kids into coders with ComputerCraft for years. They’re taking their teaching beyond the classroom by building online education for people that love Minecraft, programming, Arduino, robotics, IoT and more.

If you’re at all interested in programming education, check out their websites. They’re both doing great work using ComputerCraft. If you have a vested interest in ComputerCraft and you’re interested in sponsoring future versions of the mod, get in touch.

Thanks also to everybody who helped with beta testing this update. Thanks to some thorough testing and quality bug reports, we’ve fixed over 65 issues in this update.

Finally, thanks to everyone who has kept on experimenting and building things using ComputerCraft over the last 4 years. I’m incredibly proud of the community creations that ComputerCraft has inspired. In the new year, I’ll be formally announcing a new project I’ve been working on that should expand our community even further, so watch this space.

Happy Holidays!