Newsgroups: comp.theory.cell-automata,comp.ai.alife
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!news.mathworks.com!hookup!caen!hearst.acc.Virginia.EDU!ruacad!rucs2!dana
From: dana@rucs.faculty.cs.runet.edu (Dana Eckart)
Subject: New release of Cellular Automata Software
Message-ID: <D2ILnn.1ny@rucs.faculty.cs.runet.edu>
Organization: Radford University
Date: Mon, 16 Jan 1995 20:16:34 GMT
Lines: 61
Xref: glinda.oz.cs.cmu.edu comp.theory.cell-automata:3204 comp.ai.alife:1805

I am happy (relieved?) to announce the latest release of my cellular automata
programming system: Cellular.  UNIX and DOS versions have been placed on 
rucs2.sunlab.cs.runet.edu and are available via anonymous ftp in the files:

	pub/ca/cellular.tar.gz (440651 bytes)
	pub/ca/cellular.zip    (627642 bytes)

The file "cellular.tar.gz" contains the UNIX version and "cellular.zip" the
DOS version [NOTE: The DOS version should be unzipped with the "-d" option.]

This release fixes a number of bugs that were present in earlier releases of
the software.  In addition, a few extras have been added to make some kinds 
of programs easier to write.  If you have an earlier release, you really should
get this one to replace it with.

The system provides a compiler for the language Cellang, a cellular automata
programming language which I have been refining for the last several years.
The most important distinguishing features of Cellang, include support for:

	* any number of dimensions;

	* compile time specification of each dimension's size;

	* cell neighborhoods of any size (though bounded at compile time) 
	  and shape;

	* positional and time dependent neighborhoods;

	* associating multiple values (fields), including arrays, with 
	  each cell;

	* associating a potentially unbounded number of mobile agents
	  [ Agents are mobile entities based on a mechanism of the same 
	    name in the Creatures system, developed by Ian Stephenson 
	    (ian@ohm.york.ac.uk).] with each cell; and

	* local interactions only, since it is impossible to construct 
	  automata that contain any global control or references to 
	  global variables.  

The UNIX system supports both the X11 and Iris Graphics Library windowing
systems and can generate shared memory multi-threaded code for multi-processor
Sun and SGI machines.

As for viewing speed; a 128 x 128 cell hodge-podge automata gives more than
13 updates per second on a 4 processor SGI 4D-440/VGX using the IRIS Graphics 
Library (but only 4.4 updates per second using the X11 Windowing System, due
primarily to the extra spin locking required).

For further information, questions, and comments, please contact:

	J Dana Eckart
	Computer Science Department
	Radford University
	Radford, VA  24142

	dana@rucs.faculty.cs.runet.edu

-- 
J Dana Eckart			| It's so nice to be insane, 
dana@rucs.faculty.cs.runet.edu	| no one asks you to explain.  -- Helen Reddy
