Notes on Building an Artificial Life Simulation
Some people spend their free time building model airplanes, watching TV, or washing their cars. A decade ago I spent the better part of two years building my own "Artificial Life" simulation inside a computer, using my own "simplified" versions of genetic algorithms. I called it "Cyberdrome" and eventually wrote a science fiction novel of the same name, loosely based on this "game." Here's a flashback to some of my notes from that period, that were posted on my very first website back then. 20 October 1999 Work has resumed on the Cyberdrome Simulator, our 3D digital recreation of Cyberdrome's Infected Program Zone. Our current version contains 36 memory sectors, with each sector covering a scaled area of 25 square miles, for a total of 900 square miles of cyberspace to explore! In addition, each of the 36 sectors now contain up to 1000 independently moving Artificial Life forms, which means almost 36,000 new enemy programs are n...