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Sparse-Life A fast implementation of the classic Life simulation. Written by David Bau, based on Sam Streeper's Life module code. For use with BackSpace. Should work on NS 3.1 Intel and Motorola. Installation 1. Uncompress the file SparseLifeView.tar.Z from the Workspace or a shell. This will make a single directory SparseLifeView/ with all the sources. 2. From a shell, cd SparseLifeView and type make. This will compile the module. 3. To install the module in ~/Apps/Backspace.app, type make install. To install it elsewhere, e.g. in /LocalLibrary/BackSpaceViews, type make install INSTALLDIR=/LocalLibrary/BackSpaceViews. About Life Life is a cellular automaton that evolves a grid of cells from one generation to the next, as follows: A cell survives to the next generation only if it has two or three neighbors. An empty grid square grows a cell in the next generation only if it is surrounded by exactly three cells in the current generation. These two deceptively simple rules provide the framework for the interesting displays that you can see in this screen saver. About Sparse-Life Sparse-Life is based on Sam Streeper's Life module code, but almost everything has been changed. In particular, the following features have been added: - A sparse algorithm for appling the Life rules so that when the field is mostly empty, not too much work is done. As a result, Sparse-Life is quite fast. - The drawing is done in a different way so the display no longer flickers. - Stasis checking is faster and has been generalized to recognize a cyclic repetition of almost any period. - The control panel is souped up, and now lets you change the color and size of the cells. Cells can now be as small as 4 by 4 pixels, which makes a full screen field really huge. About Dave Dave should be working right now instead of learning how to program screensavers, but Dave finds this kind of stuff irresistible. If you like this module or fix it up or find something interesting about it, it would delight Dave to no end if you sent him a postcard to let him know. David Bau; 777 South Avenue; Weston, MA 02193. bau@cs.cornell.edu you should ask Dave if he has started on his Maze screensaver yet. 11/13/93.
These are the contents of the former NiCE NeXT User Group NeXTSTEP/OpenStep software archive, currently hosted by Netfuture.ch.