Patterns, Programs, and Links for Conway's Game of Life

Update (11-Feb-01)

My email address is callahanp@acm.org. Despite my inactivity on these pages, I still read this mail regularly and appreciate comments. I don't always remember to answer it, so send me a reminder if you don't hear from me in a couple of weeks.

--Paul

I should mention that while writing this page, I have generally assumed that the reader has at least heard of the Game of Life. But if you haven't, please don't let that stand in your way. A brief explanation can already be found elsewhere on the Web.

Alan's comments for the patterns are often terse (well, it's an awful lot of material to document) and use a rather specialized terminology. You may wish to refer to the illustrated glossary adapted from the one that Alan provided in his distribution A text version of the glossary is provided for those who are using a text-only browser, or who do not have a fast connection. For an even more comprehensive list of Life terms, see Stephen Silver's lexicon.

A Web-page implementation of John Conway's Game of Life. This one is, of necessity, slow and limited to a tiny cell universe, but it's an ingenious application of check boxes and it even runs in lynx.

Some patterns and Life implementations available in my ftp directory. Alan Hensel's zip-compressed archive of some of the world's most remarkable Life patterns. To see these in action, you need a fast Life simulator that works with Hensel's format. Some useful documentation is included along with the patterns. Alan Hensel's lightning-fast MS/DOS implementation of Life. Conveniently enough, this program works with his pattern format. Compressed source for Xlife 3.0, an X-windows implementation of Life. This accepts Hensel's format as well, but expects pattern files to have a ".life" suffix. A semi-official upgrade Xlife 3.5 at Achim Flammenkamp's web site. Enhancements are box cut-and-paste commands that I added but never released, and sub-pixel zooming by Achim for viewing extremely large patterns.

Stephen Silver's comprehensive Life Lexicon.

X Motif source code I wrote for a 4-color version of life. The rules governing live and dead cells are the usual ones. However a cell can be one of four different colors, and these colors change according to a majority rule. This is distributed as a gzipped Unix tape archive.

My Java still life generator, which uses an iterative approach to find patterns that are stable under life rules.

David Bell's definitive treatise on Spaceships in Conway's Game of Life, originally distributed as a Usenet article in flat ascii text, but since converted by Joerg Heitkoetter into an HTML document available through the Web.

A Unix shell archive of David Bell's search program that finds low-period oscillators and spaceships. Many of the spaceships discussed in Bell's article were originally found with just such a search program. Note that this is the 5 Feb 94 release, which contains features not found in the older versions archived elsewhere.

The Usenet newsgroup comp.theory.cell-automata, which is devoted to the more general subject of cellular automata, but where Game of Life discussions are not unheard of.

My December '94 Usenet article containing C source code for a collision-enumeration program. Unfortunately, my program is not very user-friendly. It works with files and command-line arguments, and won't give you much of anything unless you know just what you are looking for. It has, however, resulted in some surprising finds. This is mainly of interest to the hardcore Life enthusiast with a lot of patience and a high tolerance for frustration.

Programs that can read patterns in Alan Hensel's archive

Life32 for Windows 95/98/NT by Johan Bontes. Alan Hensel calls this "by far, the best Life program for 32-bit Windows ... extremely fast, powerful, and easy to use." I've seen this demonstrated, and concur with Alan.

W-Life, ported by Glen Summers, for PC's running MS-Windows 3.1. A decent port of Xlife to Microsoft Windows. Note that this is a port of Xlife 2.0, released in 1989. I do not have an up to date link for this software.

WinLife by John Harper, for PC's running MS-Windows 3.1. Probably the best overall Windows Life program.

LifeLab by Andrew Trevorrow, for Macs -- Mac Plus to Power Mac. Very powerful. Autodetects gliders and oscillators, has sophisticated editing, does automated searches for new patterns.

Artificial Life Resources

The Live Artificial Life Page contains links to animations of artificial life systems on the Web.

Zooland is an extensive index to artificial life resources on the Internet.

comp.ai.alife is a Usenet group for the discussion of artificial life.

David Griffeath's Primordial Soup Kitchen contains interesting patterns produced by all sorts of complex systems, including the Game of Life.

Contributors