FFFFFF AAAA SSSSS TTTTTT LL II FFFFFF EEEEEE FF AA AA SS TT LL II FF EE FFFF AAAAAA SSSS TT LL II FFFF EEEE FF AA AA SS TT LL II FF EE FF AA AA SSSSS TT LLLLLL II FF EEEEEE version 1.03 1. What is life? Life is, as some people put it, a bitch. However, those people don't refer to the same life I'm talking about. The life I'm talking about is a mathematical game thought up by someone named John H. Conway, who was a mathematician at the University of Cambridge. Life is quite often referred to as a game, which it actually isn't. Life is just a set of rules which are applied to a big field which is filled with cells. Each cell is either dead or alive. Live cells are represented as black pixels, dead ones as white pixels. First of all, the number of live neighbours of each cell are counted. 1 2 3 The numbers represent the number of neighbours, the X 4 X 5 the cell. As you can see there is a maximum of 8 live 6 7 8 neighbours to each cell. Then, these rules are applied for each cell: - If a live cell has 2 or 3 neighbours, it survives. - If a live cell has less than 2 or more than 3 neigbours it dies. - If a dead cell has 3 neighbours, it will be born. By applying these simple rules, very nice and interesting patterns can be created. The fun part of life is to create a starting scene, and then watch to see what will happen. 2. What is Fastlife? In the beginning life was played by using pencil and paper with a square grid. Of course computers are perfect for this kind of task, and so, over the years, various life-programs were created. I (Doctor Zweistein) have always liked life, and have tried programming life before. As all I can really program in is Gfa-Basic, this turned out to be terribly slow. Then I met Mister Ni!, who had programmed a fast life in assembler. I told him I'd like a copy once he'd put a decent editor around it. He told me he couldn't program a decent editor (which I still don't believe, I think he just didn't want to), so I decided to make one. A few days later I finished the first version, and thus, Fastlife was born. Since that first version a lot has improved, and faster versions of life have been made by Mister Ni! I hope you like the final product. If you have any suggestions or bug- reports, send them to us. Our adresses are included at the end of this text. 3. The guided tour This part of the manual should explain to you how to use it globally. After you've read it, you know of nearly all the functions of Fastlife. 3.1 Drawmode After you've first started the program, life will be played with an intro screen. Hit space, and click away the speed-message. On a standard ST it should be about 0.358s per generation. A Falcon should give you 0.069s per generation. Now you will be put into drawmode. You will be presented with an empty screen, and a mouse- pointer which looks like a pencil. The empty screen is the screen which will be used to play life. With the left mouse-button, you can creat and with the right mouse-button you can kill cells. First of all, hit 'R' to randomize the screen. Once the screen is filled hit 'F10' to start playing life. Now just relax and watch, to get an idea of what life is like. When you're done, hit space. 3.2 The zoom function Now, press 'Delete' to clear the screen. Press 'F3', and you will be presented with a box, which moves with the mouse. Put it somewhere over the middle of the screen, and hit the left mouse-button. A screen will be shown, with a grid on top of it. With the left mouse-button, you can create a cell. With the right mouse-button, you can kill a cell. Now, make a pattern which looks like this. .*. .** The stars should be black, the dots white. *.* Get back to drawmode by pressing 'Escape'. Now start life by pressing 'F10' again. If all is well the pattern should "walk" across the screen. This pattern is called a "glider" or "featherweight spaceship". When you get bored or when the glider hits the side of the screen, hit space. 3.3 Various functions Now, by pressing 'F1', you can load a Degas monochrome picture. If you've got one, do so and play life with it, just for the fun of it. (Or don't just as you please.) Even better, press Shift-F1. This allows you to load an XLife picture of which quite a few should be included with this package. Load and play some to get an idea of what life can be like. By pressing 'F4' you can draw a line. 'F5' allows to draw you an ellipse. With 'F6' you can draw a box. Then, if you've messed everything up completely, you can press 'F7' to erase part of the screen. This function may not be quite clear at first. What this function does is draw a white block. First of all, you can select one corner. Then, you won't be able to see where the mouse is anymore. Move it around, and press the left mouse-button, if the part you didn't like is erased. 'F8' allows you to fill (part of) the screen in black. Try all these functions and see what it looks like if you play life. If you made a mess you like you can save it by pressing 'F2'. If you want to recall the mess which was on the screen before life was started, press 'Undo'. 3.4 The block function Now, let's get onto the most powerful function of Fastlife: blocks. Fastlife can hold 50 blocks in memory, which can be a lot of fun to arrange. Erase the screen, by pressing 'Delete'. Then press 'F9'. There should be some blocks in memory already. You can tell by the names printed on the right of the screen. If the only names you see are "Block number nn", then no blocks or load in memory. Then hit 'F1' and load DEFAULT.LB which should be in this archive. Select a block with the mouse, which looks interesting, and press 'P'. You will be put on the draw-screen and the mouse-pointer will be changed into the block you chose. Press the left mouse-button to put it on the screen, and the right mouse-button to got back to blockmode. From blockmode you can get a block with 'G'. It is possible to flip a block horizontally with 'H', vertically with 'V' and diagonally with 'D'. Experiment with the various flips to find out what they do. 'F1' allows you to load a block-file, with 'F2' you can save one.' 3.5 Index mode When you're in blockmode, you can press 'I' to go to index mode. Index mode allows you to get a block from any file which is indexed. An index should be loaded already. If not, load DEFAULT.NDX with 'F1'. By using - you can scroll around the list of indexed blocks. Select an "empty" slot on the right of the screen, and then click on one of the indexed blocks, which name attracts you. After a little while the block should be in memory. Press 'I' again to view it, or press 'P' to put it on the screen. If you've changed one of the block files, or made a new one for yourself, you can add this by pressing 'A', and selecting the changed/new file. If you have a block in more than one file, press 'Delete' to delete duplicate entries in the index. With 'F2' you can save your index. Finally, the 'Help' key does something in practically any part of the program. 4. Stuff which isn't in the guided tour Here's some stuff which I didn't manage to put in the guided tour. Read this when you're familiar with all the functions, or you might not understand everything here. 4.1 The zoom function It is possible to scroll around the screen, using the arrow keys. 4.2 Various functions With 'S' you can store a screen, which you can recall with 'Undo'. You can also use 'P' and 'G' to put and get blocks. 'M' allows you to move a block. 'Q' quits the program. With shift-F10 you can now continue a life picture, which means that the number of generations and time counters won't be reset. This might be useful if you temporarily break a running life pattern to remove some gliders. (Or use remove sideblocks.) Also the Undo-screen won't be stored befor starting. This allows you to jump back to the very start of the pattern in stead of to the point you continued from. Remove sideblocks removes the little blocks on the side of the screen which are left by gliders if they hit the edge. If the main part isn't very big this will speed up calculations a lot. 4.3 Putmode In putmode you can use practically any key you can in blockmode. These are 'H', 'V' and 'D'. You can also use the right and left arrow keys, to scroll through the blocks in memory. 4.4 Index mode If you click on an indexed block with the right mouse-button, all blocks from that file will be removed. This function isn't perfect yet. 4.5 Files Fastlife does weird stuff to the following file-types: File What it is *.LB Fastlife block-file which contains blocks. DEFAULT.LB is loaded at startup. *.LIF XLife files which contain life-patterns. *.NDX Fastlife index-file. DEFAULT.NDX is loaded at startup. *.PC3 Monochrome Degas compressed picture which may contain any kind of drawing. *.PI3 The same but uncompressed. FASTLIFE.OPT The option-file which contains three settings. 4.6 General tip This version of life is only optimized for the top and the left. It sounds complicated, but it means that if you put something in the bottom right corner, and the rest of the screen is empty, it will be far faster. 5. Copying, bugreports, and other boring stuff You're free to copy this program, as long as you keep all the files with it. You don't have any obligation to send us anything at all. However, we've spent quite some time on this program, and although it was fun, I think it reasonable that if you use this program frequently, you send us some amount of money. This also has the following advantage, that if you've got a suggestion or bugreport you can be sure that we'll have a look at it. (If your amount of money is more than, say, 7.50 NLG.) Also, if a new version is finished, I'll notify you about it, and tell you where it is available. Well, that's about it. I hope you enjoy this program as much as we do (or even more)! Here are our adresses: Doctor Zweistein Mr. Ni! (aka Tim Newsome) (aka Hans Wessels) H. de Keyserlaan 25 Rohofstraat 116 1222 NE 7604 AK Hilversum Almelo The Netherlands The Netherlands Fidonet: 2:283/504.22 this is also reachable from Internet on: Tim.Newsome@p22.f504.n283.z2.fidonet.org