Looking for Life Newsletter
David Pieczkiewicz
Other Mathematical Amusements," which has a sizable section on Conway's
Life simulation, and the bibliography listed some rather intriguing
references, including a newsletter that circulated in the early 70s
called "Lifeline." I was wondering if anyone here happened to know where
copies of this newsletter could be found, if any are still around.
Also, if readers here know of good articles or books on Life (not
necessarily cellular automata; my interest is simply in the Life
simulation), I would be *very* appreciative. Thanks in advance...
David Pieczkiewicz
mua...@m-net.ann-arbor.mi.us / mua...@m-net.UUCP
David Andrews
> I recently purchased a copy of Martin Gardner's book "Wheels, Life, and
> Other Mathematical Amusements," which has a sizable section on Conway's
> Life simulation, and the bibliography listed some rather intriguing
> references, including a newsletter that circulated in the early 70s
> called "Lifeline." I was wondering if anyone here happened to know where
> copies of this newsletter could be found, if any are still around.
I have the first three or four issues of Lifeline here, I don't know why
I kept them, but they are in my mass of junk somewhere. It was originally
put out as a non-money-making venture by:
Robert T. Wainwright
1280 Edcris Road
Yorktown heights
New York 10598
but this is a 1971 address, I don't know if he is still there. If you
cannot find him, let me know and I'll duplicate what I have and send it.
rwal...@vax1.tcd.ie
> Also, if readers here know of good articles or books on Life (not
> necessarily cellular automata; my interest is simply in the Life
> simulation), I would be *very* appreciative. Thanks in advance...
The best book on Life I know of is a book called "The Recursive Universe"
by William Poundstone. It tries to draw similarities between the universe and
the Game of Life but if you're not interested in physics you can skip the
stuff about the universe and there's still enough about Life to make it well
worth buying. It includes the proof of universal computation in the Life
universe and a couple of example Life program listings.
"To summarize the summary of the summary: people are a problem"
Russell Wallace, Trinity College, Dublin
rwal...@vax1.tcd.ie
cn...@vax5.cit.cornell.edu
>The best book on Life I know of is a book called "The Recursive Universe"
>by William Poundstone.
Note that in this book is Robert Wainwright's current address (I don't recall
it), who is reissuing all 11 issues of LifeLine, which is must-have stuff if
you want to seriously play with Life.
Eric Haines
Alan William Hensel
naive about physics and computers. For example, at one point it claims
that in order to view a pattern capable of reproduction and evolution,
one would need a computer with a screen the size of the solar system,
and the pattern would be so sparse anyway as to be almost unobservable.
Well, hey, even with real life forms, we don't try to see every
subatomic particle, which are, by the way, very sparsely distributed,
too.
I've programmed the game of life several times over (see 80 Micro, May
1986, last page), including a really souped-up version for Sun 3's,
microVaxen, and IBM RT's. This version can and has run the breeder that
Martin Gardner describes in his book. It was a real pain to type it in
from that teeny photograph! And the page separation didn't help. It's
about 600 cells in length, which fits on a high-res monitor of 1024x768
pixels. My universe size is 2^18 x 2^18 (by dynamic allocation), so
keystrokes are used to move the view to another part of the universe.
Also, about the 11 issues of Lifeline, is this address correct?
Robert T. Wainwright
12 Longue Vue Avenue
New Rochelle, NY 10804
And is it still $13 plus $2 P+H?
/- alan +/
Junior, Comp. E., Carnegie Mellon University
(If this is a repeated message, sorry. Our system crashed and I don't
think my previous message got there.)