Editing Conway's Game of Life (section)

==Notable programs==
[[File:Turing Machine in Golly.png|thumb|right|300px|The {{val|6366548773467669985195496000}}th ({{val|6|e=27}}) generation of a [[Turing machine]], made in the Game of Life, computed in less than 30 seconds on an [[Intel Core 2|Intel Core]] Duo 2 GHz CPU using Golly in [[Hashlife]] mode]]

Computers have been used to follow and simulate the Game of Life since it was first publicized. When John Conway was first investigating how various starting configurations developed, he tracked them by hand using a [[Go (game)|go]] board with its black and white stones. This was tedious and prone to errors. The first interactive Game of Life program was written in an early version of [[ALGOL 68C]] for the [[PDP-7]] by [[Michael Guy (computer scientist)|M. J. T. Guy]] and [[Stephen R. Bourne|S. R. Bourne]]. The results were published in the October 1970 issue of ''[[Scientific American]]'', along with the statement: "Without its help, some discoveries about the game would have been difficult to make."<ref name=":0"/>

A color version of the Game of Life was written by Ed Hall in 1976 for [[Cromemco]] microcomputers, and a display from that program filled the cover of the June 1976 issue of ''[[Byte (magazine)|Byte]]''.<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Helmers|first=Carl|title=About the Cover|magazine=[[Byte (magazine)|Byte]]|date=June 1976|issue=10|pages=6–7|url=https://archive.org/stream/byte-magazine-1976-06/1976_06_BYTE_00-10_The_Game_of_LIFE_in_Color#page/n7/mode/2up|accessdate=February 18, 2013}}</ref> The advent of microcomputer-based color graphics from Cromemco has been credited with a revival of interest in the game.<ref>{{cite journal|last1=McIntosh|first1=Harold|author1-link=Harold V. McIntosh|title=Introduction|journal=Journal of Cellular Automata|year=2008|volume=13|pages=181–186|url=http://comunidad.escom.ipn.mx/LCCOMP/Announces/Entries/2015/12/23_LCCOMP_Obituaries_2015_files/181-186pp%20JCA-HM07-00.pdf|archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/http://comunidad.escom.ipn.mx/LCCOMP/Announces/Entries/2015/12/23_LCCOMP_Obituaries_2015_files/181-186pp%20JCA-HM07-00.pdf|archive-date=2022-10-09|url-status=live|access-date=3 November 2021|quote=With the advent of microcomputers and Cromemco's graphics board, Life became a favorite display program for video monitors and led to a revival of interest in the game.}}</ref>

Two early implementations of the Game of Life on home computers were by Malcolm Banthorpe written in [[BBC BASIC]]. The first was in the January 1984 issue of ''[[Acorn User]]'' magazine, and Banthorpe followed this with a three-dimensional version in the May 1984 issue.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://8bs.com/aumags.htm|title=Acorn User Magazine Scans|author=<!--Not stated-->|publisher=The BBC and Master Computer Public Domain Library|access-date=2018-12-29|archive-date=2013-01-16|archive-url=https://archive.today/20130116100942/http://8bs.com/aumags.htm|url-status=live}}</ref> Susan Stepney, Professor of Computer Science at the [[University of York]], followed this up in 1988 with Life on the Line, a program that generated one-dimensional cellular automata.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/susan/bib/ss/au.htm|title= AcornUser articles|last= Stepney|first= Susan|website=www-users.cs.york.ac.uk|publisher= AcornUser|access-date=2018-12-29}}</ref>

There are now thousands of Game of Life programs online, so a full list will not be provided here. The following is a small selection of programs with some special claim to notability, such as popularity or unusual features. Most of these programs incorporate a graphical user interface for pattern editing and simulation, the capability for simulating multiple rules including the Game of Life, and a large library of interesting patterns in the Game of Life and other cellular automaton rules.
* [[Golly (program)|Golly]] is a cross-platform (Windows, Macintosh, Linux, iOS, and Android) open-source simulation system for the Game of Life and other cellular automata (including all Life-like cellular automata, the Generations family of cellular automata from Mirek's Cellebration, and John von Neumann's 29-state cellular automaton) built by Andrew Trevorrow and Tomas Rokicki. It includes the Hashlife algorithm for extremely fast generation, and [[Lua (programming language)|Lua]] or [[Python (programming language)|Python]] scriptability for both editing and simulation.
* Mirek's Cellebration is a freeware one- and two-dimensional cellular automata viewer, explorer, and editor for Windows. It includes powerful facilities for simulating and viewing a wide variety of cellular automaton rules, including the Game of Life, and a scriptable editor.
* Xlife is a cellular-automaton laboratory by Jon Bennett. The standard UNIX X11 Game of Life simulation application for a long time, it has also been ported to Windows. It can handle cellular automaton rules with the same neighbourhood as the Game of Life, and up to eight possible states per cell.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://conwaylife.com/wiki/Xlife|title=Xlife - LifeWiki|website=conwaylife.com}}</ref>
* Dr. Blob's Organism is a [[Shoot 'em up]] based on Conway's Life. In the game, Life continually generates on a group of cells within a "[[petri dish]]". The patterns formed are smoothed and rounded to look like a growing [[Amoeba (genus)|amoeba]] spewing smaller ones (actually gliders). Special "probes" zap the "blob" to keep it from overflowing the dish while destroying its nucleus<!-- Pro-karyotes lack cell nucleus. -->.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Dr. Blob's Organism - It's free! |url=https://digital-eel.com/organism/ |website=digital-eel.com}}</ref>

Google implemented an [[Easter egg (media)|easter egg]] of the Game of Life in 2012. Users who search for the term are shown an implementation of the game in the search results page.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Wasserman |first=Todd |date=12 July 2012 |title=Type 'Conway's Game of Life' on Google and See What Happens |url=https://mashable.com/2012/07/12/conways-game-of-life-google/ |access-date=1 May 2020 |work=[[Mashable]] |language=}}</ref>

The visual novel ''[[Anonymous;Code]]'' includes a basic implementation of the Game of Life in it, which is connected to the plot of the novel. Near the end of ''Anonymous;Code'', a certain pattern that appears throughout the game as a tattoo on the heroine Momo Aizaki has to be entered into the Game of Life to complete the game (Kok's galaxy, the same pattern used as the [[logo]] for the open-source Game of Life program Golly).