[comp.sys.amiga.graphics] LIFE implementations

jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) (02/17/91)

Does anyone have any opinions on what is the best implementation of LIFE
(the cellular automaton) for the Amiga?  The best I've seen is the one in
the Gizmoz set.  But I'd like to see one that has a large scrollable screen
like one I saw on a Sun a few years ago.  Is there such a thing?

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dueker@xenon.arc.nasa.gov (The Code Slinger) (02/25/91)

In article <jms.2876@vanth.UUCP>, jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) writes...
>Does anyone have any opinions on what is the best implementation of LIFE
>(the cellular automaton) for the Amiga?  The best I've seen is the one in
>the Gizmoz set.  But I'd like to see one that has a large scrollable screen
>like one I saw on a Sun a few years ago.  Is there such a thing?

The only ones I know of were done by Thomas Rokicki, and are available on
the Fish disks.

One was on FF31 with a 318x188 lo-res screen, but you could only watch it
and not interact with it. (But it ran at 19.8 gens/sec) Source was included.

On FF131, he did an "update" of it, which let you start with your own defined
screen, again with source.  There is an update to it on FF306, which had a
torus option, an option for 640x400 mode, and an option to use the processor
for the calculations, instead of the blitter, in case you had installed a
faster processor.  And on FF316, yet another version that's 15% faster.

There's a couple of others (not by Thomas Rokicki), if you're interested:

A PopLife, (don't recall what that does), and a Life-3D version (shareware)
on FF70.

However, none of the above used anything larger than the viewable screen,
i.e., un-scrollable, like you wanted.  A bigger playfield, would, of course,
take a lot longer.

I've watched the SPARC version.  It's FAST!  But it WILL slow down when
there's more "cells" of "life" on the screen. Thomas' (using the blitter) is
unaffected by that.

Hope I've helped, even if it wasnt' what you wanted to hear.

Chris

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dueker@xenon.arc.nasa.gov        |   Chris Dueker (The Code Slinger)
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