(an exercise in constrained 8-bit 6502 C programming)
dependencies:
- https://github.com/cc65/ for compilation
- http://applecommander.sourceforge.net/ to update disk images.
This repo contains a A2CONWAY.DSK file which can be booted in emulators or transferred to a 140k 5.25" floppy disk.
Upon booting this dsk, a BASIC program called STARTUP will automatically run "A2CONWAY".
A2CONWAY will present some hotkeys and ask that you press enter to start. After pressing enter, Life will begin with a glider scrolling across the screen.
Hotkeys can be pressed at any time during A2CONWAY execution:
- r: randomize the screen with 400 live cells
- g: clear the screen and spawn a gosper glider gun
- s: clear the screen and spawn a simkins glider gun
- p: pause
- 1: switch to wraparound naive engine (startup mode)
- 2: switch to nowrap naive engine
- 3: switch to wraparound optimized engine
- 4: switch to nowrap optimized engine
- ?: show this hotkey information
- q: quit
Note that multiple "engines" are implmented. The naive engines are very slow, but their code is easier to read.
Here's an example of a gosper gun in action:
