Cellular Automata

Cellular Automata

  Cellular Automata are patterns placed on a grid which are updated by consistent, simple rules. What makes them interesting is that they exhibit life-like characteristics!



CELL.ZIP:  Play with The game of life, or Brain.

  Cell is an environment to set up and demonstrate two cellular automata: `The Game of Life', and `Brain'. Cellular Automata are the animated patterns created when a simple direction is applied to a regular pattern of cells on a computer screen.

  The fascination lies in the life-like and chaotic ways in which the patterns mutate. Some patterns are stationary, others explode into life, others walk the screen and crash into one another.

Often a single cell changed in the starting point will lead to a completely different outcome and life span for the cells.

Computers are the ideal place to demonstrate cellular automata, and CELL provides a powerful environment to setup, store, edit and run the patterns produced.

Starting Cell.

  The first time you use cell, it is advisable to run the demonstration file, STORE-0.CEL which contains many interesting `life'-forms. This file can of course be edited and particular patterns of interest separated.

  So, to begin using CELL, type cell at the DOS prompt. when CELL has loaded press any key to display the board and main menu. From now on the main menu is called with a `control' key. To select an option tap the first letter on the line, eg, `L' for load. Next tap `0' this will load the contents of store file 0 into CELL. The demonstration screen supplied is mode 40 and so CELL will automatically change to this mode. Finally call the menu with `control' and type `R' for Run game of life.

  If you want, you can reload and start editing the screen. This is done by holding shift and moving the cursor to highlight a screen block. Pressing `control' will now display the edit menu, and you will be able to store, mirror, rotate, clear etc. To copy an area of screen, first store it, then load it to the new position from the main menu.

  Full instructions and more information about cellular automata are included within the program itself.

  CELL.COM is public domain software, you are free to copy and use it as you like, it must not however be altered, resold, or published without the author's permission. CELL.COM is copyright James David Chapman.



CELLDEMO.ZIP:  A graphical demonstration of the game of life.

Celldemo plays the game of life on a 320*200 grid. It has been set up to automatically display a single example.

A page from James David Chapman's website. Located at: http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~jchap/ Site mirrored here at: http://www.j.chap.btinternet.co.uk
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