Category : Printer + Display Graphics
Archive   : AUTOMATA.ZIP
Filename : AUTOMATA.HLP
Written by Michael Irvine
Compiled with Turbo Pascal 3.01a
Tested on an AT clone with a standard CGA
Menu commands:
Plot - Begins plotting the automata with the parameters that have
been set.
Rule - Defines the mapping for an automata.
Current state - Defines the state to which the rule will next be
applied.
Jump gen - Allows you to skip the plotting of a specified number
of generations. It goes faster than when it must plot
the points on the display.
Bounds - Allows you to adjust the size of your virtual screen. The
value you enter is the distance between the center and the
side of the virtual screen. When this is set to a low value,
the program does fewer calculation and runs faster. To
calculate only the values on the physical screen, enter 160
for this value.
View - Allows you to move your physical screen to display any part
of your virtual screen. If you were to enter -50 here, it
would shift the view of your virtual screen 50 pixels to
the left. Positive values shift to the right. All values are
relative to the center point.
Stats - Display information about the universe you have prepared
for your automata to execute in. It also gives you the
frequency of use for each of the rules over a 100 generation
span.
Map - Set what color number maps to what color.
Help - Displays this file.
Quit - Exits to DOS.
Additional commands:
When entering the state, rule, or the color map, the arrow keys work
as follows:
Left arrow - move left one character
Right arrow - move right one character
Up arrow - move to the beginning of the entry area
Down arrow - move to the end of the entry area
also:
F1 - initializes the entry to Zeros
F2 - initializes the entry to Ones
F3 - initializes the entry to Twos
F4 - initializes the entry to Threes
F5 - initializes the entry to a random selection
When you are in the main menu, pressing the first letter of any of
the menu items will move the inverse bar to that item.
To get started, try any of these rules with a non-zero initial state.
Position: 0 123 456 789
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
0 133 033 110
0 121 301 323
0 023 301 332
0 201 303 213
0 313 330 132
0 112 003 221
0 211 031 102
0 123 010 000
Have fun!
If you have any comments, send them to:
Mike Irvine
11235 Oakleaf Drive, Apt. 1520
Silver Spring, MD 20901
Very nice! Thank you for this wonderful archive. I wonder why I found it only now. Long live the BBS file archives!
This is so awesome! 😀 I’d be cool if you could download an entire archive of this at once, though.
But one thing that puzzles me is the “mtswslnkmcjklsdlsbdmMICROSOFT” string. There is an article about it here. It is definitely worth a read: http://www.os2museum.com/wp/mtswslnk/