mathr / blog / #

So I've been working on my text-mode cellular automata, it's up to version 0.12 now, and almost the way I want it. Features I still plan to add:

• Console width support (they're not always 80 characters wide, which can mess up rendering).
• Randomize/mutate the automata themselves, rather than just the way they appear or the states of the cells.
• Pause/unpause evolution of each individual automaton.

I haven't tested the latest versions on my 386, but theoretically it should still work on such low-spec hardware. The computation isn't particularly heavy, I found it was limited by the speed at which the console could render coloured text to the screen. To make it faster, I guess the next step is replacing character output with direct graphics calls, but I don't really know where to start - if anyone out there knows how, please tell me!