Bitcoin Forum

Where can I obtain a copy of the ORIGINAL source code of bitcoin?
It seems the github is not keeping a record of all versions from launch and It seems very difficult to find the genuine copy of the original source.

I know there are some "non official" sources that claim to host this but I am not so sure they are the original code.

Could someone link me to somewhere I can get the official Satoshi release with if possible in the original  packed container.

Thanks in advance!

From what I know the first few original ones are at Satoshi Nakamoto Institute: https://satoshi.nakamotoinstitute.org/code/ , among other interesting things  ;)

It is probably impossible to get 0.0.1 version. The first publicly available version with currently used Genesis Block hash is 0.1.0. Earlier versions existed in prenet and in some testing code that Satoshi wrote before publishing the white paper. That is why you can find somewhere fingerprints from the past.

For example, starting from the first public release, difficulty is calculated by comparing two numbers and checking if current block hash is lower than some number. However, in white paper you can read about counting zero bits. It is possible that it was implemented earlier in such way, but after writing more tests it turned out that multiplying or dividing difficulty by two is not enough.

All you can do is just trying to reinvent the wheel and just guess how Satoshi implemented something by guessing what would you do as a programmer to implement it from scratch. But nowadays running any version below 0.8.6 would not be accepted by the network anyway.

Earliest known code pieces (AFAIK):
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=382374
(contributed by Ray Dillinger)

This is what the OP wants: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68121.0

Thank you for the links  :)