Java Edition pre-Classic

Pre-classic is the name given to versions released before Classic. It was part of the first development phase in Minecraft. The phase was originally named Cave Game until the game was changed to Minecraft.

History
Pre-classic began when Notch started working on a game named Cave Game. He was influenced to create minerals by Infiniminer, Dwarf Fortress, Dungeon Keeper, and his previous game RubyDung.

The textures used for grass and cobblestone blocks were from RubyDung, then other blocks and items were added, such as saplings, dirt, stone, wooden planks, and more.

Eventually, after 6 days of development, Minecraft was first publicly released on May 17, 2009 with version 0.0.11a, the first version in the Classic development phase.

Little is known about this development phase, since it was never publicly released, and only Notch could test the versions. Every version in this phase can be seen in a few of the videos on Notch's YouTube channel.

The most well known version in this phase was probably the May 13, 2009 version of Pre 0.0.9a, as it was shown in Notch's Cave Game Tech Test video.

Several pre-classic versions are now available to the public through the new launcher.

Blocks
Grass cube and stone.

Videos
A newer video showing fully explained Pre-Classic mechanics:

Trivia

 * Human mobs could be spawned by pressing the button.
 * It was possible to respawn someplace on the world by pressing.
 * This development phase lasted only 6 days.
 * This phase was named Cave Game until the game was renamed Minecraft: Order Of The Stone, later changed to simply Minecraft.
 * The earliest version of Minecraft pre-classic currently available is called "old-alpha rd-132211" (Pre 0.0.9.a, May 13th 2009) in the 1.6.4 launcher.
 * In the class files, Minecraft itself is referred to and called "RubyDung".