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From: ts@cup.portal.com (Tim W Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.games
Subject: Re: anywhere I can get a good LIFE program?
Message-ID: <34454@cup.portal.com>
Date: 2 Oct 90 06:30:43 GMT
References: <1990Sep29.060028.26340@nntp-server.caltech.edu>
Distribution: usa
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 16

A fun programming challenge is to do a really fast life on a
fixed size array.  The fastest I ever managed was 32 clock
cycles per cell per generation on a 68000.  Anyone out there
done it faster?  (512x512)

By the way, a 68000 takes at least 4 cycles to access memory,
and it would seem that you need 9 reads and a write per cell
just to get the state of the cell and the neighbors and to
write back the new state, so that at least 40 clocks per cell
per generation would be needed just for data movement, and thus
I must be telling an untruth in the first paragraph.

But I am not lying.  So, what's the trick?  This makes a great
programming puzzle (or interview question).

					Tim Smith