Guy makes a Minecraft-playing computer in Minecraft

When Hans Lemurson completed his first working in-game computer for Minecraft, he was bothered by a comment that kept coming up on forums. People would write, “Hey, that's a pretty nice computer there, but can it run Minecraft?” Lemurson's newest creation proves that yes, it can play Minecraft - or at least it can run a rough 2D approximation of Minecraft. Take a look for yourself.

Lemurson admits that "it's not truly Minecraft, but it's about as close as you can come with redstone." The virtual machine allows a player to move an icon in four directions and create and destroy blocks. Switching between movement and block manipulation is controlled with a switch, and all actions are limited to 64 tiles on an 8-by-8 grid. It's a crude platformer, but the fact that it exists is incredible nonetheless.

It's not until the last few seconds of the video that Lemurson offers a glimpse into what's actually going on when a button is pressed - and the project is massive. Happily, he has created a second video that walks through how the computer works. We've posted it below.

Sept 1, 2011