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Hidden "Life" in PCW terminal package

Started by scruss, 13:31, 14 April 20

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scruss

In memoriam of John Conway, former Amstrad employee and developer Vik Olliver wrote:
QuoteI hid "Game of Life" in V1.1 of the Amstrad PCW8256 RS232 Terminal Emulator (v1.1) - f5 menu, go to the bottom, press [EXTRA].
@vik@mastodon.nzoss.nz
Can anyone with MAIL232 confirm?

Gryzor

So he died after all, eh? It was not confirmed yesterday...

RIP. I was just explaining the rules of Life to my wife three or four days ago :(

GeoffB17

I wonder if Life (as we know it) has a special 'hot key' somewhere, and if we can find it and press it we'll find out what it's all about.   And WHY?

Or am I taking 'The Matrix' too seriously?

Geoff

GeoffB17

My active disks seem to have v 1.2 only.   I may have some really old disks (or images) somewhere.  I'll need to dig.   1.2 does NOT do what you describe.

Geoff


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GeoffB17

#6
OK.

I've found a very old .DSK image, with Loco 1.0 on.   This disk has MAIL232 on, and it's v1.1.

Found in the Joyce emulator, which is prob NOT giving me the correct code, re supposed EXTRA key, so I'll need to transfer file to REAL PCW.   The f5 menu has one item only there, so not sure about the 'bottom', but if I've got the right prog, should find it.

I THINK that I have heard about this before, long ago.   I'll track it down.

[ed]
Aha..

See https://ansible.uk/ai/pcwplus/pcwp1996.html

This corrects (?) the instructions for getting into the 'game'.

These instructions make more sense.

Geoff

GeoffB17

OK.

The new instructions above work.   Game of Life is 'alive' and 'evolving' into who knows what.   Maybe in due course it'll produce a giant '42' on the screen and stop?

Oh, and this is v1.2 of the prog, so it's not JUST 1.1 that has this.  So i don't need to transfer the file for 1.1 that I found.

Geoff

Gryzor


GeoffB17

I can try - see how comes out.   What exactly do you want the photo to show?   A game in progress?   The start-up?

Geoff

Gryzor

Both? Nothing appears to be online 😄

GeoffB17

#11
Further to this, just found an old reference to a disassembly of the MAIL232 prog, including LIFE.

Check the link attached:

http://cpm.jenandcal.familyds.org/cpm/mirrors/www.cirsovius.de/CPM/Projekte/Disassembler/MAIL232/MAIL232-MAC-en.txt

This may be some use to someone?

Is it legitimate to save this on the wiki as well?

Geoff

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