alife programs

From: Rudy Rucker (rucker@sjsumcs.SJSU.EDU)
Date: Mon May 24 1993 - 19:53:21 UTC


SimLife from MAXIS is an interesting alife simulator, mostly written by
Ken Karakatsios, who also wrote CA SIM for the Mac.  The focus in SimLife
seems to be on using the genes to specify thresholds at which the
creatures do various things.  Their motions and appearances are not
very closely coupled to their genes, that is, phenotype does not visually
reflect genotype.

The Waite Group's new ARTIFICIAL LIFE PLAYHOUSE by Stephen Prata includes
a half dozen or so shareware alife programs: dos life, windows life,
a rudimentary 1D ca simulator, a program modelled on Blind Watchmaker,
and a program modelled on Palmiter's bugs.  

My own book and disk for the Waite group will probably be called
ARTIFICIAL LIFE LAB and will hopefully be out in Fall 93.  This will
be a Windows program with CAs, turmites, and boids.  I like turmites
and boids because their appearance *does* strongly reflect their
genomes.


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