What did the star icon do in some of the pre-Scratch 1.0 versions?

In 26Mar05 and earlier, the star button adds a new cat sprite near the centre of the stage. Each additional cat sprite is placed slightly to the left and above the previous one. You can also click and drag from the button to the stage to place the cat wherever you like.

In 28May05 and later, the star button opens a “New Sprite” menu, which contains a file browser to import a sprite, a “Paint New Sprite” button to open the paint editor, and a cat button that adds a new cat sprite. The new sprite is added near the centre of the stage like before.