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 (https://mastodon.nzoss.nz/@vik/103995298169447063)
Can anyone with MAIL232 confirm?
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 :(
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
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
Hi @GeoffB17 (https://www.cpcwiki.eu/forum/index.php?action=profile;u=1489) ,
42 of course........ :)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#The_Answer_to_the_Ultimate_Question_of_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything_is_42 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrases_from_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy#The_Answer_to_the_Ultimate_Question_of_Life,_the_Universe,_and_Everything_is_42)
See Dr. Who - Extremis
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
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
Can you take a photo?
I can try - see how comes out. What exactly do you want the photo to show? A game in progress? The start-up?
Geoff
Both? Nothing appears to be online 😄
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 (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