CSI2172 Summer 2006, Assignment 1, 10pts

Due date: May 30th in class

The Game

The Game of Life is not your typical computer game. It is a 'cellular automaton', and was invented by Cambridge mathematician John Conway.

This game became widely known when it was mentioned in an article published by Scientific American in 1970. It consists of a collection of cells which, based on a few mathematical rules, can live, die or multiply. Depending on the initial conditions, the cells form various patterns throughout the course of the game.

The Rules

You assignment is to implement a console version of the game of life. Your program will read a text file init.txt located in the same directory as your executable. The file will be structured in the following format:

10, 10
2,3
4,5
2,4

Where the first line is the number of rows and columns in the grid and each subsequent line is the coordinate (0 based) of a 'lit' cell. Your program will then execute the automaton until the user calls a process stop (usually ctrl C).

You will hand in and demonstrate your program in the lab of may 30th