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Conway's Game of Life - PDP-8

antiquekid3

antiquekid3

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I had some downtime and wrote Conway's Game of Life for the PDP-8 in assembly. There's a BASIC version, but it's pretty limited. This one supports a (very large) video terminal or a VC8-E display, both with or without a storage oscilloscope. Using a storage 'scope makes it look the best, since the alternative is to raster scan the bitmap, which can get quite slow for lots of life on the screen. This version supports a bitmap of 192 by 256, which is scaled up to take the full height of a VC8E.

https://github.com/drovak/pdp8life

I'll probably add support for OS/8 soon, and maybe think up some ways to more easily initialize the bitmap without reassembling.

Enjoy!
 
eeguru said:
Most people would end that sentence with... "the Great American Novel", or "a number #1 hit song", or "a letter saying all the ways I love my significant other". PDP-8 GoL? Sure! Why not? :) Get better!
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Hah! Thanks; doing much better...and I hope you are too!

Slob said:
I wonder if this would work with a PiDP8. The Spacewar application works fairly well with the Processing client.

If it can work with that, it can work with some hardware I built a few years ago at https://hackaday.io/project/18375-wireless-spacewar-x-y-display-for-pidp-8i. I'll try it as soon as I can get a round tuit.
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Yes, if I add the subroutines to use the serial-based VC8E, it should work fine in raster mode. My Processing program that provided the initial VC8E emulation did not support store mode, so that wouldn't work quite well. I don't follow the group very often, but it looks like there may be interest in hacking SimH directly to translate "real" VC8E commands into the serial-based commands, which would be a good solution instead of modifying the PDP-8 software. Alternatively, I've been using Ian's "real" VC8E emulation in SimH, with good success.

Good work with the wireless X-Y display! Are you coming to VCF SE 7.0 in a few weeks? That would be very welcome at the show. My X-Y display no longer is showing a beam, but I do have high voltage (and can see the beam when it's powering down). I think there might be a fault in the "screensaver" mode...

Kyle
 
Are you coming to VCF SE 7.0 in a few weeks? That would be very welcome at the show. My X-Y display no longer is showing a beam, but I do have high voltage (and can see the beam when it's powering down). I think there might be a fault in the "screensaver" mode...

Kyle
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I’ve been thinking about it but was planning to bring 8008/8080 related things. Maybe i will bring just the display and wireless reciever/controls in case anyone is bringing a PiDP8 there with wireless set up.
 
Slob said:
I’ve been thinking about it but was planning to bring 8008/8080 related things. Maybe i will bring just the display and wireless reciever/controls in case anyone is bringing a PiDP8 there with wireless set up.
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If you can, bring it all! I've got some 4004 stuff I might exhibit sometime, but I'll probably bring something UNIXy and my 8/M for this show.

If you bring your X-Y display, we can hook it up to the 8/M and the recreated VC8E board too, if you're interested in that. I still don't have a working EAE, though, so SPCWAR might be a little slow...
 
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