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                           Life Screensaver
                        (c) 1998 Tom Hollander

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Introduction
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This is a screen saver based around the "Game of Life", a
mathematical game invented in the 1960s to model life. Each coloured
square represents a living organism. If it has too few neighbours
(less than 2) or too many neighbours (more than three), it will die.
If an empty square has exactly three neighbours, a new cell will be
born. The game continues indefinitely, but eventually the board will
stabilise or go into a predictable cycle.

Installation
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You need to have the VB5 runtime libraries installed to use this
screen saver. To save on download time, they are not included here
(no point in downloading them if you already have it!) If you do not
have a file called MSVBVM50.DLL in your SYSTEM or SYSTEM32 folder,
you should get the runtime files from
http://www.praxacan.com.au/tom/shareware.htm and install them into
your system folder.

To install the screen saver, copy the Life.scr file into your system
folder, open the Windows Control Panel, open Display, click the
Screen Saver tab, and choose Life from the list of screen savers.

Configuration
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If you click the Settings button in the Display dialog, you can
configure some basic options. Rows and Columns are used to set the
size of the playing board. The Regeneration Threshold is used to
determine when the current board is stable, and a new random board
should be generated. The program counts the number of turns with the
same number of living cells as the previous turn. If this number
reaches the Regeneration Threshold, a new board gets made up.

Contact Me
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If you have any comments, questions or suggestions about the screen
saver, you can e-mail me at t.hollander@praxa.com.au. You can visit
my web page at http://www.praxacan.com.au/tom/

This program is FREEWARE - enjoy!

 - Tom Hollander
   March 1998
  