XLIFE -- a cellular-automaton laboratory
This program will evolve patterns for John Horton Conway's game of Life.
It will also handle general cellular automata with the orthogonal neighborhood
and up to 8 states (it's possible to recompile for more states, but very
expensive in memory). Transition rules and sample patterns are provided
for the 8-state automaton of E. F. Codd, the Wireworld automaton, and a whole
class of `Prisoner's Dilemma' games.
See the file INSTALL for installation instructions.
To use it, run `xlife'. The help key is `?'. There is a man page.
The subdirectory `life' contains an extensive library of
interesting Life patterns. The subdirectory `codd' contains
transition rules and components for the universal computer-constructor
described in E.F Codd's "Cellular Automata" Academic Press 1968 (ACM
Monograph #3). The subdirectory `wireworld' contains patterns for the
`Wireworld' automaton described in the January 1990 issue of
Scientific American (Computer Recreations, p. 146).
Some documents on advanced pattern creation and UCC components are in
the directory doc.
We also include a couple of utilities:
The `lifesearch' program by David I. Bell has been included. You can use
this to try to find interesting patterns and trace ancestry chains. There
is a man page.
The `lifeconv' utility converts between different pattern file formats.
There is a man page.
The `collect' utility collects separate included files into one file
that uses pattern blocks. No man page, sigh.
If you discover new and interesting life patterns, let us know! Please
send the xlife savefile to
esr@snark.thyrsus.com
(the old address, jb7m+xlife@andrew.cmu.edu, is no longer valid). Or post to
comp.theory.cell-automata
These will be incorporated into the xlife distribution. Periodically, we
will post the latest and greatest discoveries to comp.theory.cell-automata.
Jon <jcrb@cs.cmu.edu>
Dan <dl2n@andrew.cmu.edu>
Chuck <cs4n@andrew.cmu.edu>
Eric <esr@snark.thyrsus.com>
