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Night Owl 6
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Night Owl's Shareware - PDSI-006 - Night Owl Corp (1990).iso
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002a
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life50.zip
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REPLGRAF.DOC
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1989-02-19
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Many thanks to Bela Lubkin for writing the program, and to
Charles Lazo III, for suggesting the idea.
Repligraph replicates itself using XOR rules. These rules
are included here even though they are simple to generate: Any dead
cell surrounded by an odd number of neighbors comes alive, and
any living cell surrounded by an even number of neighbors comes
alive. All other cells stay [or become] dead. I call these XOR rules
because the contents of each cell is the "Exclusive Or" of the nine
cells consisting of itself plus its eight neighbors.
The beauty of the XOR operation is that it does not increase
entropy. That is, no information is lost in any iteration; it is
just rearranged. This rearrangement obscures the original form of
the message. But the obscurity yeilds to crystal clarity every
2-to-the-power-n generations. The screen image supplied in this
ARC has already undergone 63 generations, and looks like absolute
nonsense. That's why you'll be bowled over by the next
generation!
Graeme W. McRae [73307,2453]