Machine Problem 3, due Oct 20

Part of the assignments for 22C:60, Fall 2004
by Douglas W. Jones
THE UNIVERSITY OF IOWA Department of Computer Science

All assignments will be due at the start of class on the day indicated, and unless there is what insurance companies call "an act of God" - something outside your control; the only exceptions to this rule will be by advance arrangement.

  1. Conway's Game of Life

    In the 1960's, John Conway invented a "game" he called Life; this game is actually a set of rules for a 2-dimensional cellular automaton. Each generation of the game of life is represented as a two-dimensional array where each cell is either dead or alive. The rules for moving from one generation to the next are: If a cell is lonely (it fewer than 2 living neighbors), it dies. If a cell is crowded (it has over 3 living neighbors), it dies. If a dead cell is surrounded by exactly 3 living neighbors, it comes alive. Each cell has a total of 8 neighbors.

    See http://www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/ for a demo and information.

    1. Implement the Game of Life

      Implement the Game of Life on an array of the dimensions returned by DSPINI. It should animate the generations using X for living cells and blank for dead cells, running continuously until stopped by control C. The initial state should be something that evolves in an interesting way.