This survey is posted monthly to the Usenet group comp.ai.genetic, and is also available as file GAsoft.txt for Internet anonymous ftp in the pub/GAucsd directory on cs.ucsd.edu (132.239.51.3). Updated version - 04/13/93. Changes since 08/19/92: * MicroGA now also available for PCs (Microsoft Windows) * new e-mail address and ftp location for BUGS * minor corrections: MicroGA, Splicer, PC/Beagle, Genie * GA Workbench now available by ftp from SIMTEL * new entries: PARAGENESIS, DGENESIS Genetic Algorithm Software Survey - Overview ============================================ As part of the workshop on Software Support and Test Functions at the 4th International Conference on Genetic Algorithms (ICGA) I began to solicit and collect information about available GA software packages. Having re- ceived a surprising number of responses, I feel that the following is a fairly comprehensive picture of what's out there at this time. Additions and corrections are of course welcome and may make it into future updates of this file. Many thanks to all the informants, including - but not limited to - the authors/contacts listed below. Special thanks to Jose Ribeiro Filho, Cesare Alippi and Philip Treleaven, whose survey article "Genetic Algo- rithm Programming Environments" (to appear) was an invaluable source of information. The descriptions of PC/Beagle, XpertRule GenAsys, Omega and EnGENEer are adapted from that article with their kind permission. San Diego, 07/09/92 - Nici Schraudolph (nici@cs.ucsd.edu). ### PLEASE NOTE: ########################################################## # # # For many of these software packages, specific ordering instructions # # are given in the descriptions below. Please read and follow them # # before unnecessarily bothering the listed author or contact! Also # # note that I haven't tested any of these programs (with the exception # # the one I administer), so I can't give any comments or recommenda- # # tions regarding their quality. # # # ########################################################################### Legend: ------ Type - (this is a very ad-hoc classification) GE: generational GA, SS: steady-state GA ES: evol. strategy, OO: object-oriented XP: expert system, ED: educational/demo OS - Operating System; X11 implies Unix; "Windows" = Microsoft Windows on PC Lang - Programming Language; in parentheses: source code not included Price - (1): free to government contractors, $221 otherwise (2): 69 pounds sterling for educational use (3): educational discount available Author or Contact - given as Internet e-mail address if possible Name Type OS Lang Price Author or Contact ------------------------------------------------------------------------- GAGA GE Unix C free jon@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Jon Crowcroft) X11, Splicer GE Mac C (1) bayer@galileo.jsc.nasa.gov (Steve Bayer) Evolution GE, DOS C free born@max.fb10.tu-berlin.de (Joachim Born) Machine ES Think Genie GE Mac Pascal free P_Stampoul@fennel.cc.uwa.oz.au (Lance Chambers) GENOCOP, GE Unix C free zbyszek@unccvax.uncc.edu (Zbigniew Michalewicz) Genetic-2, Genetic-2N GAucsd GE Unix C free nici@cs.ucsd.edu (Nici Schraudolph) GA GE, DOS (C++) free (Mark Hughes) Workbench ED WOLF SS Mac, C $20/ drogers@riacs.edu (David Rogers) Unix free GAC GE Unix C free spears@aic.nrl.navy.mil (Bill Spears) GAL " Lisp " " ESCaPaDE ES Unix C free iwan@gorbi.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Frank Hoffmeister) mGA1.0 GE Lisp free SGA-C " Unix C " rob@comec4.mh.ua.edu (Robert Elliott Smith) SGA-Cube " nCube " " BUGS GE, X11, C free jrs@santafe.edu (Joshua Smith) ED Suntools PARA- GENESIS GE CM C* free vanlent@cs.utk.edu (Michael van Lent) Genitor SS Unix C free whitley@cs.colostate.edu (Darrell Whitley) OOGA OO Lisp $60/ (Lawrence Davis) GENESIS GE DOS C both gref@aic.nrl.navy.mil (John Grefenstette) GENEsYs GE Unix C free baeck@ls11.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (Thomas Baeck) _C_o_m_m_e_r_c_i_a_l_ _P_a_c_k_a_g_e_s: EnGENEer OO X11 C ? (George Robbins, Logica Cambridge Ltd.) Evolver GE DOS, (C, $345 (Phil Rybeck, Axcelis Inc.) Mac Pascal) XpertRule GenAsys XP DOS ? ? (Attar Software) PC/Beagle XP DOS ? (2) (Richard Forsyth) Omega ? DOS ? ? (David Barrow, KiQ Limited) MicroGA OO Mac, C++ $249 emergent@aol.com (Emergent Behavior) Windows (3) _U_n_d_e_r_ _D_e_v_e_l_o_p_m_e_n_t: GAME OO X11 C++ J.RibeiroFilho@cs.ucl.ac.uk (Jose Ribeiro Filho) XYpe SS Mac (C) $725 (Ed Swartz, Virtual Image Inc.) DGENESIS GE Unix C free ecantu@itamvms1.bitnet (Erick Cantu) Genetic Algorithm Software Survey - Descriptions ================================================ GAGA: ---- GAGA (GA for General Application) is a self-contained, re-entrant procedure which is suitable for the minimisation of many "difficult" cost functions. Originally written in Pascal by Ian Poole, it was rewritten in C by Jon Crowcroft. GAGA can be obtained by request from the author; given suffi- cient interest it will be made available via anonymous ftp. Splicer: ------- Splicer is a genetic algorithm tool that can be used to solve search and optimization problems, created by the Software Technology Branch (STB) of the Information Systems Directorate at NASA/Johnson Space Center with support from the MITRE Corporation. Splicer was written in C on an Apple Macintosh, then ported to Unix workstations running X11; it has a modular architecture with well-defined interfaces between a GA kernel, represen- tation libraries, fitness modules, and user interface libraries. The representation libraries contain functions for defining, creating, and decoding genetic strings, as well as multiple crossover and mutation operators. Libraries supporting binary strings and permutations are provided, others can be created by the user. Fitness modules are typically written by the user, although some sample applications are provided. The modules may contain a fitness function, initial values for various control parameters, and a function which graphically displays the best solutions. Splicer provides event-driven graphic user interface libraries for the Macintosh and the X11 window system (using the HP widget set); a menu- driven ASCII interface is also available though not fully supported. The extensive documentation includes a reference manual and a user's manual; an architecture manual and the advanced programmer's manual are currently being written. An electronic bulletin board (300/1200/2400 baud, 8N1) with information regarding Splicer can be reached at (713) 280-3896 or (713) 280-3892. Splicer is available free to NASA and its contractors for use on government projects by calling the STB Help Desk weekdays 9am-4pm CST at (713) 280-2233. Government contractors should have their contract monitor call the STB Help Desk; others may purchase Splicer for $221 (incl. documentation) from: COSMIC Phone: (706) 542-3265 382 E. Broad St. Athens, GA 30602 U.S.A. Evolution Machine: ----------------- The "Evolution Machine" (EM) is a collection of evolutionary algorithms (Genetic Algorithms and Evolution Strategies) within a common framework. It runs on PCs under MS-DOS and includes extensive menu techniques. EM is available by anonymous ftp from ftp-bionik.fb10.tu-berlin.de (130.149.192.50) in the pub/software/Evolution-Machine directory, which contains the ARJ 2.10 archive files em_tc.exe (EM for Turbo C), em_tcp.exe (EM for Turbo C++) and em_man.exe (the manual). If you do not have ftp access, please send us either 5 1/4 or 3 1/2 MS-DOS compatible disks; we will return them with the archive files (660 kB). We welcome bug reports, comments and suggestions, but have only limited manpower for providing help, patches and new releases. We are making EM available in order to encourage the experimental use of evolutionary algorithms, and to get feedback as to its strengths and weaknesses. Joachim Born born@max.fb10.tu-berlin.de Technical University Berlin Bionics and Evolution Techniques Laboratory Bio- and Neuroinformatics Research Group Ackerstrasse 71-76 (ACK1) 1000 Berlin 65 Germany Phone: +49-30-314-72-677 Genie: ----- Genie is a GA-based modelling/forecasting system that is used for long-term planning. One can construct a model of an environment and then view the forecasts of how that environment will evolve into the future. It is then possible to alter the future picture of the environment so as to construct a picture of a desired future (I will not enter into arguements of who is or should be responsible for designing a desired or better future). The GA is then employed to suggest changes to the existing environment so as to cause the desired future to come about. Genie is available free of charge via e-mail or on 3.5'' disk from: Lance Chambers P_Stampoul@fennel.cc.uwa.oz.au Department of Transport 136 Stirling Hwy Nedlands West Australia 6007 GENOCOP, Genetic-2, Genetic-2N: ------------------------------ These three genetic optimization packages are available as compressed tar files via anonymous ftp from unccsun.uncc.edu (152.15.10.88), directory coe/evol. They have been developed by Zbigniew Michalewicz and are described in detail in his recent book "Genetic Algorithms + Data Structures = Evolution Programs" (Springer Verlag, August 1992). GENOCOP (GEnetic algorithm for Numerical Optimization for COnstrained Problems) optimizes a function with any number of linear constraints (equalities and inequalities). Genetic-2 is an optimization package for the linear transportation problem; Genetic-2N for the nonlinear one. GA Workbench: ------------ A mouse-driven interactive GA demonstration program aimed at people wishing to show GAs in action on simple function optimizations and to help newcomers understand how GAs operate. Features: problem functions drawn on screen using mouse, run-time plots of GA population distribution, peak and average fitness. Useful population statistics displayed numerically, GA configura- tion (population size, generation gap etc.) performed interactively with mouse. Requirements: MS-DOS PC, mouse, EGA/VGA display. Available by ftp from the simtel20 archive (WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil) as pd1:gaw110.zip or free on 5.25'' disk by request from: Steve Pearce sjp@camcon.co.uk Cambridge Consultants Ltd. The Science Park, Milton Road Cambridge CB4 4DW United Kingdom GAucsd: ------ GAucsd is a GENESIS-based GA package incorporating numerous bug fixes and user interface improvements. Major additions include a wrapper that simplifies the writing of evaluation functions, a facility to distribute experiments over networks of machines, and Dynamic Parameter Encoding, a technique that improves GA performance in continuous search spaces by adaptively refining the representation of real-valued genes. GAucsd was written in C for Unix systems, but the central GA engine is easily ported to other platforms. The entire package can be ported to systems where implementations of the Unix utilities "make", "awk" and "sh" are available. GAucsd can be obtained by anonymous ftp from cs.ucsd.edu (132.239.51.3), file pub/GAucsd/GAucsd14.sh.Z, or via mail server - send an EMPTY message with the subject line containing "send GAucsd source" to nici@cs.ucsd.edu. Requests to be added to a mailing list for dissemination of GAucsd bug reports, patches and updates should be directed to the same address. WOLF: ---- This is a simulator for the G/SPLINES (genetic spline models) algorithm which builds spline-based functional models of experimental data, using crossover and mutation to evolve a population towards a better fit. It is derived from Friedman's MARS models. The original work was presented at ICGA-4, and further results including additional basis function types such as B-splines have been presented at the NIPS-91 meeting. Available at no cost via anonymous FTP by contacting the author; runs on SUN (and possibly any SYSV) UNIX box. Macintosh version available on floppy disk for a $20 fee. Both versions can be redistributed for noncommercial use. Simulator includes executable and C source code; a technical report (RIACS tech report 91.10) is also available. David Rogers (drogers@riacs.edu) MS Ellis, NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA 94035 GAC, GAL: -------- For those of you interested in obtaining some free GA software, I'm providing the packages I've been using for a few years. GAC is a GA written in C. GAL is my Common Lisp version. They are similar in spirit to John Grefenstette's Genesis, but they don't have all the nice bells and whistles. Both versions currently run on Sun workstations. If you have something else, you might need to do a little modification. [Alan Schultz informs me that GAL is easily ported to the Mac - although his version is no longer available.] In the spirit of "freeware", I am willing to e-mail either version (or both) to anyone who wants it. All I ask is that I be credited when it is appropriate. Also, I would appreciate hearing about improvements! This software is the property of the Department of the Navy. The code will be in a "shar" format that will be easy to install. This code is "as is", however. There is a README and some documentation in the code. There is NO user's guide, though (nor am I planning on writing one at this time). I am interested in hearing about bugs, but I may not get around to fixing them for a while. Also, I will be unable to answer many questions about the code, or about GAs in general. This is not due to a lack of interest, but due to a lack of free time! Bill Spears ESCaPaDE: -------- ESCaPaDE is a sophisticated software environment to run experiments with Evolutionary Algorithms, such as e.g. an Evolution Strategy. Future versions of the software will provide a well-defined interface to any kind of Evolutionary Algorithm, for instance Genetic Algorithms. The main support for experimental work is provided by two internal tables: (1) a table of objective functions and (2) a table of so-called data monitors, which allow easy implementation of functions for monitoring all types of information inside the Evolutionary Algorithm under experiment. ESCaPaDE 1.2 comes with the KORR implementation of the Evolution Strategy by H.-P. Schwefel which offers simple and correlated mutations. KORR is provided as a FORTRAN 77 subroutine, and its cross-compiled C version is used internally by ESCaPaDE. ESCaPaDE 1.2 will be available by e-mail request in order to track the spread of the software as this is its first public release. An extended version of the package was used for several investigations so far and has proven to be very reliable. The software and its documentation is fully copyrighted although it may be freely used for scientific work; it requires 5-6 MB of disk space. In order to obtain ESCaPaDE via mail request, please send a message to iwan@ls11.informatik.uni-dortmund.de The SUBJECT line should contain the request 'help' or 'get ESCaPaDE'. (If the subject line does not match a predefined set of mail requests the mail handler will NOT recognize your request!) mGA1.0, SGA-C, SGA-Cube: ----------------------- mGA1.0 is a Common Lisp implementation of a messy GA as described in TCGA report No. 90004. Messy GAs overcome the linkage problem of simple genetic algorithms by combining variable-length strings, gene expression, messy operators, and a nonhomogeneous phasing of evolutionary processing. Results on a number of difficult deceptive test functions have been en- couraging with the messy GA always finding global optima in a polynomial number of function evaluations. See TCGA reports 89003, 90005, 90006, and 91004 for more information on messy GAs; they can be obtained from the address below. Please note that 91004 is a dissertation and requires a pre-payment of $9.00 US ($12.00 US to ship overseas) to offset the cost of copying, binding and shipping. SGA-C is a C-language translation and extension of the original Pascal SGA code presented in Goldberg's book "Genetic Algorithms in Search, Optimization & Machine Learning" (Addison Wesley 1989). It has some additional features, but its operation is essentially the same as that of the Pascal version. SGA-C is described in TCGA report No. 91002, which is included in the distribution as a PostScript file. SGA-Cube is a C-language translation of Goldberg's SGA code with modi- fications to allow execution on the nCUBE 2 Hypercube Parallel Computer. When run on the nCUBE 2, SGA-Cube can take advantage of the hypercube architecture, and is scalable to any hypercube dimension. The hypercube implementation is modular, so that the algorithm for exploiting parallel processors can be easily modified. In addition to its parallel capabilities, SGA-Cube can be compiled on various serial computers via compile-time options. In fact, when com- piled on a serial computer, SGA-Cube is essentially identical to SGA-C. SGA-Cube has been nominally tested on a Sun 4/70 workstation, a VAX Ul- trix system, a Cray X-MP/24 running UNICOS 5.1, and the nCUBE 2. It is described in TCGA report No. 91005, which is included in the distribution as a PostScript file. Each of these programs is distributed in form of a Unix shar file, available via e-mail or on various formatted media by request from: Robert Elliott Smith Department of Engineering of Mechanics Room 210 Hardaway Hall The University of Alabama Box 870278 Tuscaloosa, Alabama 35487 <> (205) 348-1618 <> rob@comec4.mh.ua.edu <> (205) 348-6419 SGA-C and SGA-Cube are also available in compressed tar form via anonymous ftp from the GA-List archive server ftp.aic.nrl.navy.mil (192.26.18.56) in the pub/galist/source-code/ga-source directory. BUGS ---- BUGS (Better to Use Genetic Systems) is an interactive program for demonstrating the Genetic Algorithm and is written in the spirit of Richard Dawkins' celebrated Blind Watchmaker software. The user can play god (or `GA fitness function,' more accurately) and try to evolve lifelike organisms (curves). Playing with BUGS is an easy way to get an understanding of how and why the GA works. In addition to demonstrating the basic genetic operators (selection, crossover, and mutation), it allows users to easily see and understand phenomena such as genetic drift and premature convergence. BUGS is written in C and runs under Suntools and X Windows. BUGS was written by Joshua Smith at Williams College and is available via anonymous ftp from santafe.edu, directory pub/misc/BUGS. Note that it is unsupported software, copyrighted but freely distributable. PARAGENESIS: ----------- I spent this past summer at the Naval Research Lab working with Ken Dejong and John Grefenstette to implement John Grefenstette's GENESIS on the CM-200 in C*. The result, which I've been calling PARAGENESIS, is an attempt to improve performance as much as possible without changing the behavior of the genetic algorithm. Unlike the punctuated equilibria and local selection models PARAGENESIS doesn't modify the genetic algorithm to be more parallelizable as these modifications can drastically alter the behavior of the algorithm. Instead each member is placed on a seperate processor allowing initialization, evaluation and mutation to be completely parallel. The costs of global control and communication in selection and crossover are present but minimized as much as possible. In general PARAGENESIS on an 8k CM-200 seems to run 10-100 times faster than GENESIS on a Sparc 2 and finds equivalent solutions. The solutions are not identical only because the parallel random number generator gives a different stream of numbers. PARAGENESIS includes all the features of serial GENESIS plus some additions. The additions include the ability to collect timing statistics, probabilistic selection(as opposed to Baker's stochastic universal sampling), uniform crossover and local or neighborhood selection. Anyone familiar with the serial implementation of GENESIS and C* should have little problem using PARAGENESIS. PARAGENESIS is available via anonymous ftp from the GA-List archive at ftp.aic.nrl.navy.mil (192.26.18.74). The compressed and tar-ed code is found in the file /pub/galist/src/ga/paragenesis.tar.Z. DISCLAIMER: PARAGENESIS is fairly untested at this point and may contain some bugs. I will try to fix any reported bugs as my schedule and my access to the CM allows. Michael van Lent Computer Science Dept. University of Tennessee Knoxville TN 37996-1301 vanlent@cs.utk.edu Genitor: ------- Genitor is a modular GA package containing examples for floating-point, integer, and binary representations. Its features include many sequencing operators as well as subpopulation modelling. OOGA, GENESIS: ------------- OOGA (Object-Oriented GA) is a genetic algorithm designed for industrial use. It includes examples accompanying the tutorial in the companion "Handbook of Genetic Algorithms". OOGA is designed such that each of the techniques employed by a GA is an object that may be modified, displayed or replaced in object-oriented fashion. OOGA is especially well-suited for individuals wishing to modify the basic GA techniques or tailor them to new domains. The buyer of OOGA also receives GENESIS, a generational GA system written by John Grefenstette. As the first widely available GA program GENESIS has been very influential in stimulating the use of GAs, and several other GA packages are based on it. This release sports an improved user interface. OOGA and GENESIS are available together on 3.5'' or 5.25'' disk for $60 ($52.50 inside North America) by order from: T.S.P. P.O. Box 991 Melrose, MA 02176 GENEsYs: ------- GENEsYs is a GENESIS-based GA implementation which includes extensions and new features for experimental purposes, such as selection schemes like linear ranking, Boltzmann, (mu, lambda)-selection, and general extinctive selection variants, crossover operators like n-point and uniform crossover as well as discrete and intermediate recombination. Self-adaptation of mutation rates is also possible. A set of objective functions is provided, including De Jong's functions, complicated continuous functions, a TSP-problem, binary functions, and a fractal function. There are also additional data-monitoring facilities such as recording average, variance and skew of object variables and mu- tation rates, or creating bitmap-dumps of the population. GENEsYs 1.0 is available via ftp from lumpi.informatik.uni-dortmund.de (129.217.36.140). Log on with user name "ftp" and give your full e-mail address as password. The file GENEsYs-1.0.tar.Z in directory pub/GA/src contains the complete software distribution; the documentation alone is available as GENEsYs-1.0-doc.tar.Z in the same location. EnGENEer -------- Logica Cambridge Ltd. developed EnGENEer as an in-house Genetic Algorithm environment to assist the development of GA applications on a wide range of domains. The software was written in C and runs under Unix as part of a consultancy and systems package. It supports both interactive (X-Windows) and batch (command-line) modes of operation. EnGENEer provides a number of flexible mechanisms which allow the developer to rapidly bring the power of GAs to bear on new problem domains. Starting with the Genetic Description Language, the developer can describe, at high level, the structure of the ``genetic material'' used. The language supports discrete genes with user defined cardinality and includes features such as multiple chromosomes models, multiple species models and non-evolvable parsing symbols which can be used for decoding complex genetic material. The user also has available a descriptive high level language, the Evolutionary Model Language. It allows the description of the GA type used in terms of configurable options including: population size, population structure and source, selection method, crossover and mutation type and probability, inversion, dispersal method, and number of offspring per generation. Both the Genetic Description Language and the Evolutionary Model Language are fully supported within the interactive interface (including on-line help system) and can be defined either "on the fly" or loaded from audit files which are automatically created during a GA run. Monitoring of GA progress is provided via both graphical tools and automatic storage of results (at user defined intervals). This allows the user to restart EnGENEer from any point in a run, by loading both the population at that time and the evolutionary model that was being used. Connecting EnGENEer to different problem domains is achieved by specifying the name of the program used to evaluate the problem specific fitness function and constructing a simple parsing routine to interpret the genetic material. A library of standard interpretation routines are also provided for commonly used representation schemes such as gray-coding, permutations, etc. The fitness evaluation can then be run as either a slave process to the GA or via a standard handshaking routines. Better still, it can be run on either the machine hosting the EnGENEer or on any sequential or parallel hardware capable of connecting to a Unix machine. For more information, contact: George Robbins Systems Intelligence Division Logica Cambridge Ltd. Betjeman House 104 Hills Road Cambridge CB2 1LQ U.K. Tel: +44 71 6379111 Fax: +44 223 322315 Evolver ------- Evolver is a spreadsheet add-in which incorporates the first commercially available genetic algorithm to search for solutions. Evolver can be customized through the macro language, and is available for $345 on 3.5'' or 5.25'' floppies for the Excel, WingZ and Resolve spreadsheets on the Mac and PC computers. For further information, contact: Axcelis, Inc. 4668 Eastern Avenue North Phone: (206) 632-0885 Seattle, WA 98103-6932 To order Evolver, contact: Spreadware Distributors P.O. Box 4552 Phone: (619) 347-2365 Palm Desert, CA 92261 FAX: (619) 347-6045 XpertRule GenAsys ----------------- XpertRule GenAsys is an expert system shell with embedded genetic algorithms marketed by Attar Software. Targeted to solve scheduling and design applications, this system combines the power of genetic algorithms in evolving solutions with the power of rule-based programming in analyzing the effectiveness of solutions. Rule-based programming can also be used to generate the initial population for the genetic algorithm and for post-optimization planning. Some examples of design and scheduling problems which can be solved by this system include: optimization of design parameters in electronic and avionic industries, route optimization in the distribution sector, production scheduling in manufacturing, etc. For further information, contact: Attar Software Newlands Road Leigh, Lancashire U.K. Tel: +44 942 608844 Fax: +44 942 601991 PC/Beagle --------- PC/Beagle is a rule-finder program for PCs which examines a database of examples and uses machine-learning techniques to create a set of decision rules for classifying those examples, thus turning data into knowledge. The system contains six major components, one of which (HERB -- the "Heuristic Evolutionary Rule Breeder") uses GA techniques to generate rules by natural selection. PC/Beagle is available to educational users for 69 pounds sterling. Orders, payment or requests for information should be addressed to: Richard Forsyth 59 Cranbrook Rd Bristol BS6 7BS U.K. Tel: +44 272 428692 Omega: ----- The Omega Predictive Modeling System, marketed by KiQ Limited, is a powerful approach to developing predictive models. It exploits advanced GA techniques to create a tool which is "flexible, powerful, informative and straightforward to use". Omega is geared to the financial domain, with applications in Direct Marketing, Insurance, Investigations and Credit Management. The environment offers facilities for automatic handling of data; business, statistical or custom measures of performance, simple and complex profit modelling, validation sample tests, advanced confidence tests, real time graphics, and optional control over the internal GA. For further information, contact: KiQ Business Modelling Systems Limited David Barrow - Managing Director Tel: +44 371 870254 MicroGA: ------- MicroGA is a powerful and flexible new tool which allows programmers to integrate GAs into their software quickly and easily. It is an object-oriented C++ framework that comes with full source code and documentation as well as three sample applications. Also included is the Galapagos code generator which allows users to create complete applications interactively without writing any C++ code, and a sample MacApp interface. MicroGA is available for Macintosh II or higher with MPW and a C++ compiler, and also in a Microsoft Windows version for PC compatibles. Compiled applications made with MicroGA can be sold without license fee. MicroGA is priced at $249; a special discount is available to professors interested in teaching classes using GAs. For further information and orders, contact: Steve Wilson Emergent Behavior 635 Wellsbury Way Palo Alto, CA 94306 U.S.A. Phone: (415) 494-6763 GAME: ---- GAME (GA Manipulation Environment) aims to demonstrate GA applications and build a suitable programming environment. Currently in the early development stage, the programming environment will comprise a graphic interface (using X-Windows), a library of parameterized algorithms and applications, a specialized high level language based on C++, and com- pilers to various workstations and parallel machines. GAME is being developed as part of the PAPAGENA project of the European Community's Esprit III initiative. XYpe: ---- XYpe (The GA Engine) is a commercial GA application and development package for the Apple Macintosh. Its standard user interface allows you to design chromosomes, set attributes of the genetic engine and graphically display its progress. The development package provides a set of Think C libraries and include files for the design of new GA applications. XYpe supports adaptive operator weights and mixtures of alpha, binary, gray, ordering and real number codings. The price of $725 (in Massachusetts add 5% sales tax) plus $15 shipping and handling includes technical support and three documentation manuals. XYpe requires a Macintosh SE or newer with 2MB RAM running OS V6.0.4 or greater, and Think C if using the development package. Currently the GA engine is working; the user interface will be completed on demand. Interested parties should contact: Ed Swartz Virtual Image, Inc. 75 Sandy Pond Road #11 Phone: (508) 772-4225 Ayer, MA 01432 U.S.A. DGENESIS: -------- Based on GENESIS 5.0, this project at ITAM (Mexico) aims to implement a distributed GA on a network of workstations. For more information, con- tact Erick Cantu (ecantu@itamvms1.bitnet or ecantu@babbage.rhon.itam.mx).