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Game of Life in Postscript

smashr writes "It never really occured to me that postscript could be used for something other than printing, until I came across this page. Evidently someone has written the classic 'Game of life' entirely in postscript. You can even send it to the printer and have it output every single iteration.. now that would be a fun prank."

3 of 265 comments (clear)

  1. Wow. by JanusFury · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I find it impressive that a technology that's been around since 1985 is not only still usable, but it's used almost everywhere for printing and is also an extremely powerful language. If only more technology was created this way these days. Definitely a testament to the people who created postscript...

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  2. yes, and... by pb · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Conway's Game of Life is also turing complete; therefore, you can regard this PostScript hack as proof that PostScript is turing complete as well, since you could implement a turing machine on top of Life, on top of PostScript..... :)

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  3. Re:Please forgive me by pohl · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...is anyone concerned about the image of the tech community and finding more realistic ways to demonstrate the creativity and resourcefulness of nerds?

    I once spent a day with a guitarist of immense talent. He spent countless hours with his instrument, but not making music...it was all just pointless scales, arpeggios, chord progressions around the cycle of fifths...not one bit of actual music did he perform. Sure, it was amazing to watch, but I couldn't understand why he was wasting his immense muscial intellect with such mundane exercises.

    I wonder where he got the talent. Must have been a gift from god. It surely couldn't be that tireless practice of one's art leads to mastery, and that anything that helps one make practice fun aids in one's journey towards eminence in one's field...nope, no way.

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