John Conway: Game Over
John Conway: Game Over
The day before yesterday, British Mathematican and inventor of the "Game of Life" cellular automaton, John onway, sadly passed away at the age of 82, apparently of Covid-19.
His "Game of Life" was one of my first programming attempts in ZX-81-Basic (long lost).
As a farewell tribute to him, find attached two zip files containing a new "Game of Life" program for the QL. This time I found the program deserved to be implemented in a contemporary language which continiually withers away from common knowledge: Pascal - Here, Prospero Pascal.
You can run the game by executing the attached binaries and BOOT file (note the PP runtimes module needs to be LRESPRed first) or examine the source code - There's a makefile included that shows how to set up and build PP programs on SMSQ/E machines.
The game features a small editor for the world, as well as a "random fill".
Tobias
EDIT: life_exec_zip re-uploaded due to mess-up. If prl (the PP run times) crashes your SMSQ/E machine, try to EPROM_LOAD prl_rom instead.
EDIT2: Some more minor fixes
His "Game of Life" was one of my first programming attempts in ZX-81-Basic (long lost).
As a farewell tribute to him, find attached two zip files containing a new "Game of Life" program for the QL. This time I found the program deserved to be implemented in a contemporary language which continiually withers away from common knowledge: Pascal - Here, Prospero Pascal.
You can run the game by executing the attached binaries and BOOT file (note the PP runtimes module needs to be LRESPRed first) or examine the source code - There's a makefile included that shows how to set up and build PP programs on SMSQ/E machines.
The game features a small editor for the world, as well as a "random fill".
Tobias
EDIT: life_exec_zip re-uploaded due to mess-up. If prl (the PP run times) crashes your SMSQ/E machine, try to EPROM_LOAD prl_rom instead.
EDIT2: Some more minor fixes
Last edited by tofro on Tue Apr 14, 2020 8:27 am, edited 5 times in total.
ʎɐqǝ ɯoɹɟ ǝq oʇ ƃuᴉoƃ ʇou sᴉ pɹɐoqʎǝʞ ʇxǝu ʎɯ 'ɹɐǝp ɥO
Re: John Conway: Game Over
Nice, tofro! Although I havent been able to test it yet. There appears to be a problem with the zip file: There are two Life_exe files (of different sizes), so unzip tries to overwrite the first one. No problem to rename, but is this what you wanted?
The second issue is that LRESPRing prl on SMSQ/E silently crashes the system. Is this for Qdos only?
The second issue is that LRESPRing prl on SMSQ/E silently crashes the system. Is this for Qdos only?
Per
dont be happy. worry
- ?
dont be happy. worry
- ?
Re: John Conway: Game Over
Sorry for that.pjw wrote:N
The second issue is that LRESPRing prl on SMSQ/E silently crashes the system. Is this for Qdos only?
I have cleaned up and re-uploaded the exec package. Apparently, prl crashes SMSQ/E - The new package has "prl_rom" in there, try to EPROM_LOAD that on SMSQ/E, that works for me.
Tobias
ʎɐqǝ ɯoɹɟ ǝq oʇ ƃuᴉoƃ ʇou sᴉ pɹɐoqʎǝʞ ʇxǝu ʎɯ 'ɹɐǝp ɥO
Re: John Conway: Game Over
Great!
Ive always enjoyed these kind of simulations, although Ive never found the wherewithal to explore them as much as Id like.. I wonder, is entropy/stasis the inevitable outcome (with these rules)? So far it seems so, within < 2000 generations.
A few minor bugs: The title doesnt display correctly on my system, and S)imulate is misspelt.
Thanks to you and John Conway!
Ive always enjoyed these kind of simulations, although Ive never found the wherewithal to explore them as much as Id like.. I wonder, is entropy/stasis the inevitable outcome (with these rules)? So far it seems so, within < 2000 generations.
A few minor bugs: The title doesnt display correctly on my system, and S)imulate is misspelt.
Thanks to you and John Conway!
Per
dont be happy. worry
- ?
dont be happy. worry
- ?
Re: John Conway: Game Over
Not quite: Use the editor and try this simple thing:pjw wrote:Great!
Ive always enjoyed these kind of simulations, although Ive never found the wherewithal to explore them as much as Id like.. I wonder, is entropy/stasis the inevitable outcome (with these rules)? So far it seems so, within < 2000 generations.
Code: Select all
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Hi Per!pjw wrote: A few minor bugs: The title doesnt display correctly on my system, and S)imulate is misspelt.
thanks for the feedback. Corrected the typo (that whole thing was cobbled together in an hour this afternoon...), but what's wrong with the title on your system exactly?
ʎɐqǝ ɯoɹɟ ǝq oʇ ƃuᴉoƃ ʇou sᴉ pɹɐoqʎǝʞ ʇxǝu ʎɯ 'ɹɐǝp ɥO
Re: John Conway: Game Over
Im a bit short of time at the mo, hence my breathless comments..tofro wrote:but what's wrong with the title on your system exactly?
Turns out it wasnt the title. To recreate the issue try:
Start the program. Press E to edit, then immediately ESC. Thereafter all input goes to the outline window.
Per
dont be happy. worry
- ?
dont be happy. worry
- ?
Re: John Conway: Game Over
Ah, yes! That was a leftover from some debug code. Fixed.pjw wrote:Im a bit short of time at the mo, hence my breathless comments..tofro wrote:but what's wrong with the title on your system exactly?
Turns out it wasnt the title. To recreate the issue try:
Start the program. Press E to edit, then immediately ESC. Thereafter all input goes to the outline window.
Thanks,
Tobias
ʎɐqǝ ɯoɹɟ ǝq oʇ ƃuᴉoƃ ʇou sᴉ pɹɐoqʎǝʞ ʇxǝu ʎɯ 'ɹɐǝp ɥO
Re: John Conway: Game Over
For those who dont yet feel over-saturated by everything Covid, I give you Qovid_bas. While not related to John Conway in any way, its still somewhat in the same ballpark as his Game of Life, so I put it here:
It should work with SMSQ/E and Minerva+TK2 on a GoldCard or better.
I might have been able to do better with this "Covid Simulator", but I really didnt want to spend much time with it. Its primitive and unscientific, but I just felt an urge to offload this little idea from by brain, where its been rattling around for some time.It should work with SMSQ/E and Minerva+TK2 on a GoldCard or better.
Per
dont be happy. worry
- ?
dont be happy. worry
- ?
Re: John Conway: Game Over
Tofro,
Nice job on the Pascal, esp. in just an hour. I'm very rusty with my Pascal. I like how you did the key input since the screen is SCR and not CON.
Tim
Nice job on the Pascal, esp. in just an hour. I'm very rusty with my Pascal. I like how you did the key input since the screen is SCR and not CON.
Tim
Re: John Conway: Game Over
Hi,
Nice prog in commemoration of Conway.
Over the summer I did some reading on `Surreal Numbers' (only half understood), a new maths apparently also founded by Conway. The theory further leads to `Strategy Games', with interesting property, that for some games a winning strategy exists in the domain of surreal numbers.
Prospero Pascal, just curious how it compares to C1 Pascal, the one I have. C1 can run on plain QL, but have not tried yet, just read the manual.
Tomas
Nice prog in commemoration of Conway.
Over the summer I did some reading on `Surreal Numbers' (only half understood), a new maths apparently also founded by Conway. The theory further leads to `Strategy Games', with interesting property, that for some games a winning strategy exists in the domain of surreal numbers.
Prospero Pascal, just curious how it compares to C1 Pascal, the one I have. C1 can run on plain QL, but have not tried yet, just read the manual.
Tomas