The Diablo beta was never available on the internet. In 1996 10.000 "Battle.net Beta" CDs (Diablo) were sent to chosen beta testers and none of them was allowed to distribute the beta. They even had to destroy the beta CD after the testing phase finished.
So the Beta is almost impossible to get unless you know someone who participated in the Beta 1996 and who still has the CD.
I posted the unaltered EXE of the Beta version a couple of months ago. The file should still be online.
The beta itself isn't as interesting as many people think. It's quite close to the final version, but has only 5 (IIRC) levels. And it was Battle.net only. So you can't do anything with it.
Also in 1996 there was a Diablo pre-release Demo available on several magazine CDs and on the internet.
This one is way more interesting. It features a quite outdated version of the game with a different interface, many spells that didn't make the final version and older item graphics.
The download is ~60MB. I don't know if you can still find this on the internet.
There are two versions of this demo. The first one has a normal MPQ file, the EXE file to run the game and some other files. The second comes in a 60MB EXE file. Unfortunately the 1st one is harder to find than the second one. You can use a patched EXE for the 1st version to gain access to the deeper dungeon levels (1-4 instead of 1-2) and a couple of other things.
Here's a link to the pre-release Demo: ftp://angrenost.org/games/diablo/diablopr.zip
I don't know which version it is.
So the Beta is almost impossible to get unless you know someone who participated in the Beta 1996 and who still has the CD.
I posted the unaltered EXE of the Beta version a couple of months ago. The file should still be online.
The beta itself isn't as interesting as many people think. It's quite close to the final version, but has only 5 (IIRC) levels. And it was Battle.net only. So you can't do anything with it.
Also in 1996 there was a Diablo pre-release Demo available on several magazine CDs and on the internet.
This one is way more interesting. It features a quite outdated version of the game with a different interface, many spells that didn't make the final version and older item graphics.
The download is ~60MB. I don't know if you can still find this on the internet.
There are two versions of this demo. The first one has a normal MPQ file, the EXE file to run the game and some other files. The second comes in a 60MB EXE file. Unfortunately the 1st one is harder to find than the second one. You can use a patched EXE for the 1st version to gain access to the deeper dungeon levels (1-4 instead of 1-2) and a couple of other things.
Here's a link to the pre-release Demo: ftp://angrenost.org/games/diablo/diablopr.zip
I don't know which version it is.