According to Wikipedia, "John Horton Conway was an English mathematician active in the theory of finite groups, knot theory, number theory, combinatorial game theory and coding theory. He also made contributions to many branches of recreational mathematics, most notably the invention of the cellular automaton called the Game of Life."
Web comic XKCD memorialized his passing with a comic which showed a stick person turning into a "glider", a construct in the Game of Life which will continue moving indefinitely into empty space.
This example opens with a recreation of XKCD's tribute to Conway, then from time to time refreshes the display with a random state. It's designed for the FeatherWing M4 Express, but you can adapt it to other boards by changing the lines that create the RGBMatrix object. The code is also designed for the 64x32 LED displays. Unlike the other demos, it will adapt to other display sizes like 16x32 by changing the lines that create the RGBMatrix object.
# SPDX-FileCopyrightText: 2020 Jeff Epler for Adafruit Industries
#
# SPDX-License-Identifier: MIT
import random
import time
import board
import displayio
import framebufferio
import rgbmatrix
displayio.release_displays()
# Conway's "Game of Life" is played on a grid with simple rules, based
# on the number of filled neighbors each cell has and whether the cell itself
# is filled.
# * If the cell is filled, and 2 or 3 neighbors are filled, the cell stays
# filled
# * If the cell is empty, and exactly 3 neighbors are filled, a new cell
# becomes filled
# * Otherwise, the cell becomes or remains empty
#
# The complicated way that the "m1" (minus 1) and "p1" (plus one) offsets are
# calculated is due to the way the grid "wraps around", with the left and right
# sides being connected, as well as the top and bottom sides being connected.
#
# This function has been somewhat optimized, so that when it indexes the bitmap
# a single number [x + width * y] is used instead of indexing with [x, y].
# This makes the animation run faster with some loss of clarity. More
# optimizations are probably possible.
def apply_life_rule(old, new):
width = old.width
height = old.height
for y in range(height):
yyy = y * width
ym1 = ((y + height - 1) % height) * width
yp1 = ((y + 1) % height) * width
xm1 = width - 1
for x in range(width):
xp1 = (x + 1) % width
neighbors = (
old[xm1 + ym1] + old[xm1 + yyy] + old[xm1 + yp1] +
old[x + ym1] + old[x + yp1] +
old[xp1 + ym1] + old[xp1 + yyy] + old[xp1 + yp1])
new[x+yyy] = neighbors == 3 or (neighbors == 2 and old[x+yyy])
xm1 = x
# Fill 'fraction' out of all the cells.
def randomize(output, fraction=0.33):
for i in range(output.height * output.width):
output[i] = random.random() < fraction
# Fill the grid with a tribute to John Conway
def conway(output):
# based on xkcd's tribute to John Conway (1937-2020) https://xkcd.com/2293/
conway_data = [
b' +++ ',
b' + + ',
b' + + ',
b' + ',
b'+ +++ ',
b' + + + ',
b' + + ',
b' + + ',
b' + + ',
]
for i in range(output.height * output.width):
output[i] = 0
for i, si in enumerate(conway_data):
y = output.height - len(conway_data) - 2 + i
for j, cj in enumerate(si):
output[(output.width - 8)//2 + j, y] = cj & 1
# bit_depth=1 is used here because we only use primary colors, and it makes
# the animation run a bit faster because RGBMatrix isn't taking over the CPU
# as often.
matrix = rgbmatrix.RGBMatrix(
width=64, height=32, bit_depth=1,
rgb_pins=[board.D6, board.D5, board.D9, board.D11, board.D10, board.D12],
addr_pins=[board.A5, board.A4, board.A3, board.A2],
clock_pin=board.D13, latch_pin=board.D0, output_enable_pin=board.D1)
display = framebufferio.FramebufferDisplay(matrix, auto_refresh=False)
SCALE = 1
b1 = displayio.Bitmap(display.width//SCALE, display.height//SCALE, 2)
b2 = displayio.Bitmap(display.width//SCALE, display.height//SCALE, 2)
palette = displayio.Palette(2)
tg1 = displayio.TileGrid(b1, pixel_shader=palette)
tg2 = displayio.TileGrid(b2, pixel_shader=palette)
g1 = displayio.Group(scale=SCALE)
g1.append(tg1)
display.root_group = g1
g2 = displayio.Group(scale=SCALE)
g2.append(tg2)
# First time, show the Conway tribute
palette[1] = 0xffffff
conway(b1)
display.auto_refresh = True
time.sleep(3)
n = 40
while True:
# run 2*n generations.
# For the Conway tribute on 64x32, 80 frames is appropriate. For random
# values, 400 frames seems like a good number. Working in this way, with
# two bitmaps, reduces copying data and makes the animation a bit faster
for _ in range(n):
display.root_group = g1
apply_life_rule(b1, b2)
display.root_group = g2
apply_life_rule(b2, b1)
# After 2*n generations, fill the board with random values and
# start over with a new color.
randomize(b1)
# Pick a random color out of 6 primary colors or white.
palette[1] = (
(0x0000ff if random.random() > .33 else 0) |
(0x00ff00 if random.random() > .33 else 0) |
(0xff0000 if random.random() > .33 else 0)) or 0xffffff
n = 200
