Golly is an open source, cross-platform Game of Life simulator currently under development by Andrew Trevorrow and Tomas Rokicki. Our goal is to write a world-class Life simulator, solicit ideas and help from the planet's best Life hackers, and share some of our excitement.
Golly's key features:
Unbounded universe (limited only by memory).
Fast, memory-efficient conventional algorithm.
Super fast hashing algorithm for highly regular patterns.
Responsive even while generating or garbage collecting.
Reads RLE, Life 1.05/1.06, and macrocell formats.
What's New
Version 2.3: Release notes were unavailable when this listing was updated.
Requirements
Intel, Mac OS X 10.4 or later.
Related Links
http://voxel.dl.sourceforge.net/project/golly/golly/golly-2.3/golly-2.3-mac104.zip">Download version 2.3 (Universal) for Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5.
Excellently executed. Free. Very comparable to high-end Windows available Game programs. Conway's Game of Life is amazing. For those who don't know, a grid, including squares which are either, we'll say, 'on' or 'off', governed by only the rule that if there are either 2 or 3 'on' squares touching a square (aka adjacent above, left, right, or below, and up-right, up-left, down-right, down-left), that square will be 'on' during the next discrete time step.
So in timestep 1 (we'll call it 1 instead of 0) two squares start out 'on', separated by a space between then. In the next time step, that space in between them will be 'on', and the two original squares (and all others over the entire grid) will be 'off'. A few other sets of rules other than the 2-3 rule can work, but surprisingly few sets of rules produce such interesting results as the 2-3 rule. Without going into any more detail, this program is at least worth a look if you're at all interested in what this is about.
The only thing I'd like to find is a universal Turing Machine. It is said that anything in known existence (and unkown) can be realized by this machine. Anything that could possibly be calculated by the mind, or computer, or entities unkown to humans.. it really is something to behold.
Great job with this program. Worthwhile if you're a College professor or student in higher math, as Conway's Game of Life will surely be something that you'll come across. Other reasons it could be so worthwile have not all been realized yet.
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Golly is an open source, cross-platform Game of Life simulator currently under development by Andrew Trevorrow and Tomas Rokicki. Our goal is to write a world-class Life simulator, solicit ideas and help from the planet's best Life hackers, and share some of our excitement.
Golly's key features:
Unbounded universe (limited only by memory).
Fast, memory-efficient conventional algorithm.
Super fast hashing algorithm for highly regular patterns.
Responsive even while generating or garbage collecting.
Reads RLE, Life 1.05/1.06, and macrocell formats.
Can paste in patterns from the clipboard.
Auto fit option keeps patterns sized to the window.
Full screen option (no menu/status/tool/scroll bars).
+45
versanick reviewed on 30 Jan 2006
So in timestep 1 (we'll call it 1 instead of 0) two squares start out 'on', separated by a space between then. In the next time step, that space in between them will be 'on', and the two original squares (and all others over the entire grid) will be 'off'. A few other sets of rules other than the 2-3 rule can work, but surprisingly few sets of rules produce such interesting results as the 2-3 rule. Without going into any more detail, this program is at least worth a look if you're at all interested in what this is about.
The only thing I'd like to find is a universal Turing Machine. It is said that anything in known existence (and unkown) can be realized by this machine. Anything that could possibly be calculated by the mind, or computer, or entities unkown to humans.. it really is something to behold.
Great job with this program. Worthwhile if you're a College professor or student in higher math, as Conway's Game of Life will surely be something that you'll come across. Other reasons it could be so worthwile have not all been realized yet.
+17
Anonymous reviewed on 10 Oct 2005