golly

Tool for exploring Game of Life and other automata

Key features: - Supports both bounded and unbounded universes. - Supports various topologies (plane, torus, Klein bottle, etc.). - Supports multi-state universes (cells can have up to 256 states). - Includes the QuickLife algorithm. - Uses the HashLife algorithm to see large patterns evolve at huge time scales. - Supports many different rules, including Wolfram's 1D rules, WireWorld, Generations, and John von Neumann's 29-state CA. - Uses the RuleLoader algorithm to load custom rules. - Reads RLE, macrocell, Life 1.05/1.06, dblife, and MCell files. - Can also read common graphic formats: BMP, PNG, GIF, TIFF. - Can extract patterns, scripts and rules from zip files. - Downloads files from online archives. - Includes a pattern collection. - Paste in patterns from the clipboard. - Unlimited undo/redo. - Unbounded zooming out for astronomical patterns. - Auto fit option keeps a generating pattern within view. - Full screen option (no menu/status/tool/scroll bars). - Supports multiple layers, including cloned layers. - HTML-based help with an integrated Life Lexicon. - Scriptable via Lua or Python. - User-configurable keyboard shortcuts.