Digiex

Today we have an unexpected trip down memory lane, which all started when @jessenic sent a screenshot on WhatsApp of an old hard drive he found used when developing the Mac version of the Digiex Minecraft Launcher, a launcher which was very popular back in the day before Minecraft Java Edition had any sort of official launcher allowing you to select the version you wish to play.

By chance I asked Jessenic if he had a backup of the first Minecraft world from the original Digiex server, it turns out he did! This server started around October / November 2010 on an old Mac Mini that lived on a shelf in @Nimrod 's bedroom. This was the alpha edition of Minecraft.

Jessenic sent the world over to me and I managed to load it in the latest version of Minecraft Java Edition. Jessenic was also exploring the world, so we decided to explore it together and I uploaded it to an idle Minecraft instance I had on a server hosting Pixelmon for some friends.

I never really played Minecraft much back then, however did play on the Digiex server for a short while. Remembering the bridge system connecting peoples houses / creations well. The first thing I ever built on Minecraft was still there, a little seaside house, with a shark trap by the sea outside it. Little did I know at the time Minecraft did not have sharks in it.

As this world was hosted online for near enough two years I was impressed to see how much people had developed it over time, Jessenic gave me a tour of many of the major builds that had taken place in that time, which does make me wish I’d played Minecraft a bit more back then.

From looking at the map data it seems exactly 840 played on this world over the two years it was online, pretty impressive!

For anyone who might still be lurking on Digiex from the Minecraft days, or for anyone curious on what people were doing 10 years ago on Minecraft Alpha I will leave this server online for a while and opened it up to the public.

You can connect using Minecraft Java edition 1.15.2 (current latest) by adding: minecraft.digiex.net as a server.

The server from back in the day did look to have a few mods installed to allow warping to several areas that were built up over the years. Unfortunately these do not work, so I’ve simply changed the spawn area to the one originally used when the server first started out.

We are pleased to be able to share several savefiles dumped from Pokemon Gen 2 and 3 cartridges that have recently been distributed a plethora of event Pokemon directly from the Pokemon Center New York (PCNY) distribution hardware that recently surfaced. This hardware was recently obtained by the Pokemon event preservation team after surfacing in late 2019.
Hopefully it provides enough public satisfaction for everyone, while the preservation team undertakes this grand and lengthy task of hopefully enabling the software to become usable via emulation, as well as hopefully producing hardware mods for a publicly feasible physical method of distributing.

More about the Pokemon Center New York (PCNY) distributions and saves can be found in our download center post: Pokemon GEN 2 & 3 PCNY Distribution Machine Save Downloads

Be sure to send thanks to @Deoxyz for taking the time to provide this very comprehensive save file release.

Continuing the tradition of the past couple of years, its Christmas day and I’m pleased to announce we have a totally new Pokemon Gen 3 distribution to release this year, Doel Deoxys!

The Doel Deoxys was distributed at the TV Toy Museum in the Netherlands during the Pokemon Fan Days 2006 from May 25 to 28, 2006 to celebrate the release of Destiny Deoxys (Doel Deoxys). This Doel Deoxys distribution has never seen the light of day since, so needless to say we’re delighted that 13 and a half years later the Doel Deoxys distribution is preserved and available to anyone in the Pokemon community to enjoy indefinitely.

This release was made possible with significant financial contributions from the following people: ajxpk, bromario56, Deoxyz, Gridelin, InsaneNutter, Invader TAK, north13, thaleskpl, theskipster, theSlayer, UndeadxReality and YoshiMoshi which technical knowledge and insight provided by King Impoleon, fabio00 and Sabresite.

Here is a video of the Doel Deoxys Distribution in action:


Once again I’d like to personally thank everyone who has been involved with this release, it’s amazing just how many events and distributions we have managed to preserve between us as a team.

Just to make people aware this is truly the last distribution the Event Preservation team has to release, nothing else is currently in the pipeline. However, that’s not to say something doesn’t surface in 2020. So please keep a look out and make us aware of anything that surfaces in the future. Everyone is still very much interested in preserving other distributions that are out there. With what has surfaced over the last few years, anything is truly possible when it comes to Pokemon events and distributions.

So enjoy! - Pokemon Gen 3 Doel Deoxys Distribution Download

The Aurora Ticket is an item that was only obtainable at real world events, which unlocks Birth Island on Pokemon FireRed, LeafGreen and Emerald.

Since we originally obtained the Pokemon Gen 3 Aurora Ticket Distribution, for several years some private collectors who already possessed the newly public roms said that our version of the Aurora Ticket had a chunk of data erased from the hex. None of this effected the function of usage of the distribution, as it was all miscellaneous and unused data. Not long after we obtained the Doel Deoxys distribution in September 2018, we finally were able to obtain the alleged unedited Aurora Ticket rom. The data that was erased from the public copy before it came into our possession (further proof GBA devcarts are being rewritten with these) was revealed to be leftover data of the Japanese Aurora Ticket wondercard and Japanese wonder news about the event. None of this data is usable at the moment, however leftover data in distribution software is commonly found.

Some examples you may remember being Negaiboshi / Wishing Star Jirachi hidden in the Wishmaker software, or the debug/test Pokemon hidden in some of the NDS roms. One day in the future this data may amount for something to be seen or used by the public, but for now the important aspect of this being public is that the original unedited Aurora Ticket Distribution is properly preserved along with all our other unedited Pokemon Gen 3 GBA Distributions.

Download: Pokemon Aurora Ticket Untouched US...

Over the years I’ve been working with others in the Pokemon Community to preserve at least one of each Gen 3 event Pokemon and as many Gen 3 distributions as possible, it soon became apparently that the Pokemon Gen 3 event distributions been sold on GBA Development Cartridges on Ebay we’re replications / clones. I’m not using the word “fake” here as the software been sold on these development cartridges is legitimate, however it’s a copy been passed off as the original and sold for a lot of money. (€1000+ )

Our group worked out how this was been done earlier in the year, and quite honestly anyone could do this with the hardware you have at home now. Yet this information is not widely known, many perceive you need old GBA development kits with obscure hardware / software that won’t run on modern computers.

The reality is you simply need an Nintendo DS and a Flash Card.

We decided it’s best for the community if this information is out there and readily available, as its already been abused at this point so we’re only benefiting people misusing this by keeping quiet.

With that in mind today I’m we’re publishing two guides, one aimed at the Pokémon event preservation community to raise awareness and one aimed more at the console homebrew enthusiast / developer who might whish to developed their own GBA homebrew and test it on proper GBA development hardware.


Read more on the posts below:

How Pokemon GBA Distribution Cartridges Are Replicated and Sold For €1000’s

Flash / Write Official GBA Development Flash Carts With An Nintendo DS

We have had the privilege of preserving another Pokemon Gen 1 Mew, this time we have a Mew distributed in Norway to Club Nintendo members.

Digiex member @Golden Toilette kindly backed up his save game containing the Norway Mew, obtained all the way back in the year 2000, allowing us to share it for all to enjoy.

The Club Nintendo Mew distribution ran in Norway from October 15th 2000, to November 20th 2000 and required you to be a Club Nintendo member to receive a Mew.

Read more: Pokemon GEN1 Legit Club Nintendo Norway Mew Event

With the announcement of Niantic Wayfarer coming soon to Pokemon Go players, it is perceived eligible Pokemon Go players world wide will soon gain the ability to submit Pokestops, so this will finally not just be limited to certain countries.

Having recently worked with an Ingress player to submit POI ideas in my local area, I learned quite a bit about the process from him. I also learned how you can analyse the S2 cells in your area with tools such as IITC Mobile. This allows you to figure out where you need to make a submission and how many submissions you need to create another gym in a certain area for example.

At first glance apps like IITC Mobile might not appear to be the most user friendly, however once you have them setup correctly its very easy to use IITC Mobile to understand the area you wish to improve on Pokemon Go.

Learn more: Plan Pokestop Submissions In S2 L17 Cells With IITC Mobile.

Freespace 2 is currently free to claim on Good Old Games (GoG) for the next 42 hours from the time of posting.

The game continues on the story from Descent: FreeSpace, once again thrusting the player into the role of a pilot fighting against the mysterious aliens, the Shivans. While defending the human race and its alien Vasudan allies, the player also gets involved in putting down a rebellion of those elements of Vasudan (Hammer of Light) and Human (Neo Terran Front) forces which don't want to cooperate with one another.

Freespace 2 also includes the FRED2 editor available in the installation directory of the game.

Link: Freespace 2 on GoG

The Xbox One scene might finally be starting to get a little interesting. XVMM has released a privilege escalation exploit for Xbox One consoles running in dev mode.

Essentially this allows you to breakout the user land sandbox and gain Administrator access. Currently this will allow you to dump the nand using the XRF tool, however it might allow for some other interesting things to happen.

Either way its nice to see a little Xbox One activity after all these years. Microsoft will probably patch this exploit pretty soon however.

Download: Xbox One Dev Mode Privilege Escalation Exploit

A Prototype / Demo of Pokemon Silver localised for Germany has been preserved and released. This Pokemon Silver demo was purchased from a collector who was selling off various Pokemon prototype carts.

The game was already out in Japan by that time, so don't expect anything major like the space world demos with that in mind, however their are a few minor differences which are explained in the Pokemon Silver German Prototype / Demo release thread.

Regardless it is still indeed a very interesting and very rare release that is now preserved for historical Pokemon preservation.

Thanks to @Deoxyz who made this release possible before he retired from Pokemon related projects.