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I once programmed Game of Life for an Amiga bootblock. During the late eighties and early nineties, writing small bootblock intros was a popular hobby.
Bootblock is also where a lot of viruses lived.
I am not too familiar with Windows development in the 16-bit era, so I do not understand what Raiter means when he writes that he “de-Petzoldized” the code. I thought Petzold’s work on documenting the Windows API was foundational. Was it the style?
Yes, Petzold's examples used a certain style to illustrate the use of the Windows API as clearly as possible. Petzold programs would have a giant switch statement handling WndProc messages, state would be held in tons of global variables, and everything crammed in to one huge file. Great for showing a concept and demonstrating how something works, not so good for developing a maintainable, reliable piece of software.
Has anyone ever seen a version of the game of life that's actually a playable "game" - that's fun and not just an interesting simulation? I would love to try it.
Reaction-diffusion can definitely do complex life-like behaviour and plenty of other fascinating things! (Rob Munafo's Uskate-World being a great example!) And here's a YT vid of an experimental RD sim that I made a while back to illustrate: