Thank you! I remebered I had played this as a child on Windows 3.x
vardump 12 hours ago [-]
Game of Life was everywhere in the eighties. Numerous computer magazine articles and type-ins were published. There was an implementation of it for practically everything.
I once programmed Game of Life for an Amiga bootblock. During the late eighties and early nineties, writing small bootblock intros was a popular hobby.
Bootblock is also where a lot of viruses lived.
baruz 15 hours ago [-]
I am not too familiar with Windows development in the 16-bit era, so I do not understand what Raiter means when he writes that he “de-Petzoldized” the code. I thought Petzold’s work on documenting the Windows API was foundational. Was it the style?
djriley 14 hours ago [-]
Yes, Petzold's examples used a certain style to illustrate the use of the Windows API as clearly as possible. Petzold programs would have a giant switch statement handling WndProc messages, state would be held in tons of global variables, and everything crammed in to one huge file. Great for showing a concept and demonstrating how something works, not so good for developing a maintainable, reliable piece of software.
baruz 12 hours ago [-]
Thank you!
DrHungers 14 hours ago [-]
Has anyone ever seen a version of the game of life that's actually a playable "game" - that's fun and not just an interesting simulation? I would love to try it.
kej 13 hours ago [-]
Either the one from Microsoft or another from that era had multiple colors of cells, and an option to play competitively where before each generation you could add one cell of your color. Whether it was actually "fun" is another question.
imp 18 hours ago [-]
Man, that reminds me that as a kid I coded the game of life into Excel with a bunch of nested IF statements. It was a small field, but still a lot of fun
nealabq 17 hours ago [-]
My wife once did the same in VisualBasic. The cells were buttons. Small but fun.
trollbridge 17 hours ago [-]
Microsoft QuickC came with LIFE.C as a sample program. For DOS, although it would obviously run under Windows.
Dwedit 9 hours ago [-]
What about Win32s? Then the same binary can run on Windows 3.1 and Windows 11.
https://games.zerker.ca/GameDetails/LifeGenesis_Windows%203....
I once programmed Game of Life for an Amiga bootblock. During the late eighties and early nineties, writing small bootblock intros was a popular hobby.
Bootblock is also where a lot of viruses lived.