ConwayLife.com

During the first decade and a half or so of the Internet, there existed a multitude of different online options for CA simulation on a variety of platforms, from Flash to Shockwave to Java and more. Sadly the days of browser plugins are long gone (brought to the attention of many with the momentous deprecation of Flash at the end of 2020, and fully finishing in the near future with Silverlight's removal in October), meaning that most of these early examples not only have no modern browser support, but are in danger of being lost forever as a result (why keep paying for a site that 99% of internet users cannot interact with properly?).

In the interest of preserving simulators like these (predominantly Java-based) for all eternity, as well as historical versions of simulators we do have, and on behalf of the Flashpoint community (which, yes, does support platforms other than Flash), I've compiled a list as follows:


- Mirek's Java Cellebration: Currently v.1.50 and v.1.51 are saved, but everything before that currently seems to be gone. I have compiled an index of known versions, which can be found here: https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datah ... llebration

- Alan Hensel's simulator: Identifying the different versions of this classic gets a bit trickier. v0.41d is safely preserved in the collection, and I've managed to get all but one of the files from the original source code for v.0.41c (but don't know how to actually compile it to get a functional applet). v.0.42b is also known to exist, but before that I don't know. An index can also be found here: https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datah ... ife_applet

- Cellsprings: I've managed to recover everything this one needs to function - except a single .class file that the wayback machine decided would be funny to not archive. Original download link is as follows: http://web.archive.org/web/201110160659 ... /csprings/

- WebsideCA: Similarly, I've managed to get everything needed for this one - EXCEPT FOR A SINGLE COLOR MAP FILE WHICH IT REFUSES TO WORK WITHOUT...

- Others: There are probably plenty more I haven't mentioned or even considered that might be at risk. Do mention below.


I understand it's pretty unrealistic to expect anyone here to both have used one of these and be using the same PC they did or have hard drive backups from circa 1999, but there's not much else that can be done to try and keep these alive. If anyone thinks they might have something of interest, do post below - the sooner the better.

If we're counting historical versions of software for which newer versions are still available, TR's hlife, which I believe still exists as part of Golly, is available on his site as version 0.96. The Wayback Machine goes back to 0.8. Are earlier versions still around anywhere?

Here's one I've really wanted to see for a while: The original Hashlife implementation written by Bill Gosper. He describes it here in his 1984 paper (doi:10.1016/0167-2789(84)90251-3):

"I found the RESULT algorithm while at the XEROX Palo Alto Research Center. Its only implementation so far has been in the exceptionally powerful Flavor Lisp mechanism devised by Howard Cannon (of Symbolics, Inc). This is also true of the subsequently discovered display, geometric transformation, aging, merging, and grid replication algorithms. John Lamping of Stanford University saved me much work by suggesting a binary quadrant structure in place of the ternary structure in my original plan. An early model Symbolics 3600 ran the puffer train of figs. 1 and 2 several million steps, at a rate which doubled every two or three minutes, once the initial explosion settled into oscillation."

(Also, what did he mean by geometric transformation and merging?)

I wonder how many even earlier B3/S23 simulators are lying around on old RK05 drives waiting to be discovered.

(I realised after re-reading your post that you meant web-based programs. But hopefully you'll excuse me getting slightly off topic.)

muzik wrote: August 3rd, 2021, 12:30 pm - Mirek's Java Cellebration: Currently v.1.50 and v.1.51 are saved, but everything before that currently seems to be gone. I have compiled an index of known versions, which can be found here: https://bluemaxima.org/flashpoint/datah ... llebration

Sometime ago I rewrote MJCell, making some improvements and correcting some errors. I did not give it a version number. A zip file containing the source code is here:

http://bprentice.webenet.net/MJCell/Source.zip

Brian Prentice