Cellsprings/Web 1.21 beta
Cellsprings/DT 1.21 beta
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October 12, 2000 |
- The desktop edition goes public with this version.
- Added another new hex rule I encountered, dubbed "Cyclones". Its main
novelty lies in its traveling rotators.
- Fixed a minor bug wherein the frequency readout was not getting initialized
properly under certain circumstances.
- Updated the Quick Tips.
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| Cellsprings/Web 1.20 beta |
October 4, 2000 |
- The execution threads involved in CA update are now handled differently.
(At the present time only browsers running on Win32 systems, which employ
a consistent Java thread-scheduling model, are affected. However, the
upcoming desktop edition of Cellsprings exposes a configuration
parameter that lets the user experiment with the optimization on other
platforms.) Microsoft's browser in particular (leastwise the IE5/VM
version I tested) seems to like the changes - most CAs run
considerably faster and the update is smoother as well. Moreover, due to
the absence of arbitrary limits in the new thread-handling strategy, you
should find that doing something to lower graphics demands will speed some
CAs dramatically.
(For example, try shrinking the CA display using the
View | Autozoom Ceiling or decreasing your system's color depth.)
On the
potential down side, the new code may be less robust to system differences and exceptional
conditions, so keep
me posted on any problems.
- Since, with the above changes, the unencumbered update rate may sometimes
be too fast for comfortable viewing, a more convenient
"braking" control has been provided. The button formerly known as the
"slow-mo mode toggle" now directly
pops up a menu of delay options. In addition, more medium-speed settings have
been added (although whether or not they will all have a differential effect
depends on features of the Java implementation).
- On the status bar, there is now a
separate "flags" field to indicate whether braking delay (SLOw) and/or animated
gif capture (RECording) are active.
- Two new rules from Ben Schaeffer's Strata series have been added, namely
"Strata-pop" and "Stratectonic". Access them on the Presets | General
2Bit Rules menu. Also, the two members of the series that were installed
previously have received new, more memorable, names from Ben. Number
5 is now "Continuation" and 6 is "StrataVarious". (These four rules
are the variations on the stratified theme that grabbed my attention, though
the true stratomaniac will want to collect Ben's whole set :)
- "PipeFleas" is another great new rule from Ben premiering online
in Cellsprings. Catch it at the top of the
Presets | General 1Bit Decay Rules menu.
- A couple of sample seeds were added to better exhibit the Hextenders rule,
which turns out to have considerable star-power - figuratively and sometimes
literally.
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| Cellsprings/Web 1.15 beta |
August 29, 2000 |
- Enabled springlet support in the applet as
part of preparation for the
public availability of Cellsprings/DT, which complements that support
in its role as a springlet development tool.
- Installed an inaugural sample springlet, HexagonalTotalistic.class, which
implements a rulespace whose promise was brought to my attention by Ben Schaeffer's
now-famous YChromosome rule.
- Installed 4 new rules as serialized instances of said
springlet, and moved
YChromosome to join them on a new Presets | Springlet-implemented Rules
submenu. The new rules are Pinwheels, Hextenders, Nocturne, and HexParity. The
first three of these were gleaned from my own explorations with the springlet and
have not to my knowledge been described elsewhere.
HexParity is the H7 variation of Fredkin's H5 rule and as such is well known.
- Changed the mechanism and timing of server directory reads. The main upshot
for users is that the file lists in the File | Open dialogs will reflect the current
contents of the public data directories rather than just what was there at applet
startup. Some time may be shaved from startup as well, though in most cases
it will probably be negligible.
- Fixed a couple of obscure bugs involving error reporting.
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| Cellsprings/Web 1.11 beta |
August 7, 2000 |
- Made some minor changes to the presets configuration.
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| Cellsprings/Web 1.10 beta |
August 4, 2000 |
- Added some UI conveniences for navigating the presets. There are two new
items on the Presets menu and three new speed buttons. Among other things,
you can now peruse presets sequentially without getting tied up in the main
menu.
- Mirrored StateMate | Substate Target Enabled to a checkbox above the
target dimensions fields - a much handier location.
- Updated the current CAR file format version and the codec that implements it,
and rewrote all the preset CARs as version 0.51. (The change from 0.50 to
0.51 addresses a small technical inconsistancy I discovered in conjunction with
documenting the CAR spec for public dissemination.)
Cellsprings now writes only CAR 0.51 but reads both versions - hence it
can be used to update any old CARs that may have got loose.
- Made a small optimization to the totalistic update code. Not sure it makes
much difference.
- Preset rules now have color map associations - that is, an alternate color map
is auto-selected when some preset rules are loaded.
- Added 5 new rules to the Presets | Outer Totalistic Decay Rules menu,
all of "my own invention", as the White Night said. I encountered SoftFreeze,
Xtasy, ThrillGrill, and Bloomerang in just the past week. (Maybe something was
in the smoke from the Utah wildfires :) The fifth rule is the C=5 variation of
Glisserati - I decided it merited breaking out for separate exhibit, dubbing it
'Glissergy' for the occasion.
- The presets went on a diet. The upshot is that the resource JAR
file is somewhat smaller even with the rule additions, yet nothing is likely
to be missed. Of course, there's still some flab left, but crash diets are
unhealthy - we'll get there.
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| Cellsprings/Web 1.06 beta |
July 22, 2000 |
- Changed the applet startup process slightly to address problems with
applet updates experienced by some visitors using proxies. Now a simple
reload (refresh) on the applet page should cure any problems you may
experience after an update.
- Added three new rules to the Presets | General 2Bit Rules menu:
Galaxy, Strata5, and Strata6. Galaxy is a new variation from Suzudo on the
"unstable spiral" theme established by Wave. The other two are new Schaeffer
rules. I substituted Strata5 for Strata because it is in the same
general vein but more dynamic, whereas Strata6 takes the series in a rather
different "broken strata" direction.
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| Cellsprings/Web 1.05 beta |
July 16, 2000 |
- Added descriptive labels to two "movie options" dialog fields from which
they had been unaccountably omitted.
- Fixed a serious programming error in my GIF encoding package that was exposed
during testing for separate release. (As it happens, under many GIF options it was
self-counteracting, and thus apparently it did not affect the
Cellsprings output.)
- Added YChromosome and Strata, two new rules by Ben Schaeffer.
YChromosome, in particular, is a must see. You'll find it at Presets | General
1Bit Decay Rules, where it rockets to the top of the list. Strata is in the
General 2Bit category.
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| Cellsprings/Web 1.04 beta |
July 2, 2000 |
- Added 7 rules by Ben Schaeffer to the Presets | General 1Bit list, viz.,
Dragon, SEmigration, Cloud54, Cloud75, Emergence, Candidate2, and Linguini. These
rules were discovered in '99 but I hadn't examined them until recently. Ben's rule
discoveries demonstrate a remarkable diversity in 1-bit emergent phenomena - truly
cutting edge rule exploration.
- Added 3 new rules by Tomoaki Suzudo to the Presets | General 2Bit list,
viz., Honeycomb, Colony, and Wave. These rules constitute the crescendo in an
unprecedented symphony of self-organized CA dynamics. It's my pleasure to bring
Suzudo's new discoveries to a wider audience.
- The boot-applet now informs you in its startup message of the size of the
resource JAR download, since some browsers do not.
- Worked around a Netscape "issue" wherein the File | Open dialogs would
shrink after the first usage, partially obscuring long filenames. Also, the
dialogs now have a large enough minimum width that you can always read the whole
title.
- If you think those last two are trivial, try this one. Through some stupidity
of hurried programming, in the first version the startup CA was necessarily the
first preset. Now it's set to the same rule/seed combo that WebsideCA
greeted you with - Brain's Brain is hard to beat for a "springy" howdy-do.
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| Cellsprings/Web 1.03 beta |
June 21, 2000 |
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First public version.
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Copyright © 1998-2000 J. M. G. Elliott.
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