Game of Life on a Flip-Dot Display Is Even More Satisfying Than It Sounds

With the passing of John Conway earlier this year, John Whittington decided to run his iconic "Game of Life" on a flip-dot display. The game starts out with a random positioning of simulated cells, which live or die based on the state of their neighbors. When simulated on this 28x14 unit, as shown in the video below, the discs flip back and forth with a satisfying clicking sound, and with a rather impressive refresh rate given their mechanical nature. The display also does a series of “screen” wipes, and even says "hello!" in clicky pixels.

The panel, while awesome in itself at 28x14 pixels, is meant to be part of a much larger 252x56 panel that Whittington is working on. It runs on Python, using the Python Imaging Library for cell simulation. Code and more details info on the display method can be found on GitHub repository, along with this Gist. According to the documentation, the control protocol is built around a series of 7x28 boards, which would mean 72 individual segments, or 36 times what’s shown here when the bigger panel gets done.

For now, it seems the larger display lives in simulation only, but even at its current resolution, it’s a rather remarkable and capable unit.