Paladin Ryan – The Redstone Update That Changed Minecraft Forever

Ten years ago today, mojang released an  update that would change the course of   redstone as we know it forever. Minecraft  version 1.5 was released march 13, 2013,   and was of course called the redstone update.  Today, ten years later, I want to assess the  

Impact of the update knowing what we know now,  and talk about how important it was at the time. Certain things we take for granted in minecraft  today haven’t always been around. We’re blessed   with crazy high efficiency automatic farming,  item sorting systems, and near-instant material  

Transportation. However, pre 1.5, things were a  lot different in the redstone world. Disclaimer,   I am horrifically nooby with my redstone  knowledge, like I am the type of guy to   watch a tutorial frame by frame when I build  any redstone contraption, so if I get anything  

Wrong in this video, *please be nice*. Anyway,  pre-1.5 redstone builds such as piston doors,   automatic note block song builds, and automatic  lighting systems were super popular. Early   redstone youtube legends such as Sethbling,  the creator of the insanely hilarious minecart  

Wave machine, and FVDisco, the creator of the  legendary redstone themed temple of notch map,   were making ridiculous contraptions that were  entertaining, and sometimes downright comedic,   but didn’t really have a crazy amount  of applicable utility in your average   survival world. There were things such as  piston conveyors that move you super fast,  

But these types of contraptions were expensive  and usually fairly complicated for the average   user. And that’s kind of the thesis of  this video, it really seems like the 1.5   update really pushed everyday utility for redstone  over the aesthetic and entertainment of old. So,  

Let’s go through some of the major additions in  1.5 and how their impact is still felt today. 1.5 is when the block of redstone was  released. The block of redstone is the   first minecraft block in history that emits  a constant redstone signal. Previously,  

The only way to achieve this was to use a  redstone torch, which had its limitations.   The main issue with a redstone torch on a block  is…well you can’t move it with pistons. Meaning,   you cannot move a consistent redstone signal  without working around it somehow. The redstone  

Torch also gets broken by water and lava, which  you really shouldn’t be putting anywhere NEAR your   redstone builds to avoid absolute catastrophe,  but in case you did, it was incredibly risky   with the use of the redstone torch. The block  of redstone instantly solved these two issues,  

And opened up a whole realm of piston plus  redstone block possibilities for contraptions.   The piston moves the redstone block and it  maintains its signal. The redstone block   maintains its constant signal even when fully  submerged, making underwater or god forbid,  

Under-lava contraptions actually possible. And you  see the redstone block in almost every modern day   redstone contraption, like flying machines  and vertical redstone signal contraptions. Another feature released in version 1.5 was  the daylight sensor. Many people consider  

This a useless block, but I think it’s got its  place in the right setting. One of the coolest,   yet simplest redstone builds I’ve ever seen  is an automatic fireplace using the daylight   sensor. You can flip the sensor to become  a night sensor, which basically produces a  

Redstone signal in the absence of light, instead  of the presence. The concept for it is simple,   you just hook up the daylight sensor to some  dispensers in a netherrack fireplace, and boom,   you have such a comfy cozy automatic fireplace  that turns on when the sun goes down. So,  

Daylight sensors may not be the most  popular thing, but given enough creativity,   they are incredibly useful for  aesthetically pleasing builds. This is where I’m going to be really careful  with my words to avoid sounding like I don’t   know what I’m talking about, even though I mostly  don’t. The redstone comparator. For some reason,  

I can read the words of what the comparator does  a million times, and still not get it. One of the   best explanations I saw was in a reddit comment  that said Redstone Comparator: This takes two   different power sources, and figures out a math  problem with them. If both power sources are on,  

The comparator will produce power. If only one  or neither source is on, then the comparator   won’t be on. This is pretty cool actually, and  I DO know that my 2 million capacity item sorter   in my long time survival world that took dozens of  hours to build required over 1000 of them. So they  

Must be really important. No really though,  the comparator is used in almost every item   sorting storage system. Without them, I don’t  think it’d really be possible on a grand scale. Speaking of automatic sorting systems, probably  the BEST part of the update is the hopper. The  

Hopper absolutely changed the game forever. Almost  every utility survival redstone build uses hoppers   in some way, shape, or form. Any automatic  farm, item sorter, super smelter, you name it,   you’ll see hoppers. And once you get an iron farm  set up, which by the way uses hoppers as the main  

Component, you basically have infinite hoppers  for other things. Which is exactly what i did   for the over 8000 iron ingots it took to build my  item sorter. Weird flex and nobody asked I know,   but anyway, hoppers could really be their own  solo video topic entirely. There’s an endless  

List of uses, and I’m not sure even Mojang knew  how much the game would change from this. It was   weird to go from semi-automatic farming to fully  automated super sorter machines at the time,   but I think it’s a great change. There’s  something so satisfying about hoarding tens  

Of thousands of materials that would  take a lifetime and a half to use up. 1.5 also featured the activator rail and the  minecart with TNT, which is hilariously fun.   The faster the minecart with tnt goes, the bigger  the boom. It also doesn’t destroy the rails it’s  

On. I love it. Droppers were added, which are  different from dispensers in that they well,   DROP items instead of shoot them out.  They can be attached to hoppers and are   super versatile, being used for things  like vertical item transfer systems.

Redstone wasn’t the only thing tweaked in  1.5 either. This was the update that nether   quartz was added into the game, with all of the  quartz block variants as well. This was the very   first actual full white block other than white  wool. It provided much, much needed contrast in  

Building palettes, and is still a staple in  many large minecraft builds today. And then   there were many smaller changes, and I won’t go  through all of them, but I’ll quickly talk about   a couple more notable ones. Nether brick as an  item was added, giving the nether brick block a  

Craftable recipe via smelting netherrack. So no  more destroying fortresses to get nether brick,   it became practically infinite. A really  important quality of life change that we   take for granted today was added in 1.5. This was  the left click drag ability in the crafting menu,  

Which splits the item or block in half every  square it’s dragged over. This makes crafting   mass amounts of things that require a lot of  crafting squares, like stairs for example,   much easier without accidentally leaving  blocks behind. It’s kind of crazy how far  

The crafting quality of life has come. I’ve been  playing the older versions of minecraft a lot   recently, and appreciate the shift click  function more and more every single day. Minecraft java edition version 1.5 will forever  go down as one of the most important updates in  

Minecraft history, and will probably never fade  into obscurity like some of the other updates.   Its impact is still widely felt 10 years later,  and will for however long the game is around. It   brought avid redstone users together with redstone  noobs to collaborate on systems that make your  

Survival world utilized more efficiently.  And that was the true beauty of the update,   not the blocks that were added, but  the way it shaped redstone forever. Anyway if you liked this version review video,  let me know by leaving a like and subscribe for  

A potentially endless minecraft experience.  If you have any thoughts on version 1.5,   leave them in the comments below.  I love you all so so very much,   don’t forget to floss, and  I’ll see you in the next one!