Conway's game of life challenge

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4pyros

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Here is a challenge for you all. I have been thinking about how to best implement a cell of Conway's game of life without any programing. I know you can do it with 43 discrete gates but there has to be a better way to do it without programing anything. All it basically is 8 inputs and one output that conforms to Conway's rules. Any ideas?
Andy
 
A summing amplifier and a comparator should do it but you will need some kind of clock to make all cells change at the same time.

Mike.
 
A summing amplifier and a comparator should do it but you will need some kind of clock to make all cells change at the same time.
Click to expand...
An analog solution... maybe, can we make them work in real time? I was just stuck on digital. Yes eather way we may need a clock input.Andy
 
Not to many into The game of Life.

With the rules as follows; 2 or 3 ON=stay on, 3 on=turn on, all others on = turn off. It may be posible with analog circuitry but how would you handle, 3 on turn on , when 2 or 3 on is stay on?
Andy
 
It would have to go something like this

0 neighbours on : Turn Off
1 neighbour on : Turn Off
2 neighbours on : Do nothing
3 neighbours on : Turn On
4 neighbours on : Turn Off
5 neighbours on : Turn Off
6 neighbours on : Turn Off
7 neighbours on : Turn Off
8 neighbours on : Turn Off

So you need to check only if there is exactly two or three neighbours on.. otherwise turn the cell Off.
You can pretty much ignore the case when there are two neighbours on, because that requires no action.

The problem is the synchronization (clock signal) of all the cells. Especially if you want to make a big and fast game.
 
Last edited:
Could you not get this to work in real time without a clock? Andy
 
4pyros said:
Could you not get this to work in real time without a clock? Andy
Click to expand...

It's a clock based game. The output is dependent on the state of each cell, frozen in time, each tick of the clock, spawns a new generation. Could be an interesting variation, but have a hunch it would die out quickly
 
A clock of some kind is needed.

The concept of "generation" in that particular automata implies "timing", thus a "clock" of some kind.

I enjoyed implementing LIFE in a 128x64 GLCD driven by a PIC micro in Assembler.
 
Ok, So we would need a master clock, probably a master reset, and a manual switch for each cell to make a start pattern.
Andy
 
I found my limit with that.

After designing the algorithm I entered in the never ending game of trying to find the most "promisory" initial pattern.​

When I realized that I was spending my whole time in that, I retained the best ones up to the moment plus some of the classics and stopped altogether. Enough.​

There is people that seems to be dedicating all their energies to LIFE. Google and you will see.​

Not me.​

Buena suerte.​
 
Seems to me we could use an adder to take care of the inputs. Maybe like this one;
**broken link removed**
 
Not much on the net about the CD4008 has anyone used these? Andy
 
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