Computer Science 1107
AN INTRODUCTION TO FORTRAN PROGRAMMING FOR SCIENTISTS AND ENGINEERS

Fall 2001

Objective: To further explore writing a FORTRAN 77 program using multi-dimensional arrays.

The Game of Life: Text Problem 10, page 616.

A nice Game of Life Java Applet can be found at Conway's Game of Life. Your FORTRAN graphics will not be as impressive, but you may get some good ideas for patterns by playing with this applet.

Be sure to do the following:

• Create a hand-drawn flow chart for the program using the appropriately shaped boxes for start-stop, Input/Output, and computation as discussed in class OR write out the algorithm for the entire program using pseudocode which should be written out by hand, not typed.

• Write the FORTRAN program, naming the source code file labec.f and including an explicit list of all variables as well as a short description of the problem in a documentation section using comment lines at the beginning of the program. Be careful to choose the types of your variables appropriately and to include your name and student number in the documentation section.

• Allow your user to input data representing the initial generation from a file of his or her choosing. Be sure the your documentation is clear about the expected structure of such an input file.

• Create different input files with the initial configurations given in the text and any others you wish to try.

• The three rules should work on a single "generation" rather than one at a time. This means that the board at each generation should have all the rules applied before making any changes. Then by applying all three rules, you will create the next generation.

• Use a loop and give the user the option of selecting the number of generations to run each time.

• Your output should be nicely displayed on the screen at EVERY generation even when the user wants to go through more than a single generation. This will create the illusion of growth of the system. Hence the name, Game of Life.

• Be sure that you code your program so that every cell has exactly eight neighbors--even the cells at the edges of your array. This is the way you will create a correct algorithm and give the illusion of an array that extends indefinitely in both directions.

• Run the program with sufficiently many carefully selected sets of input to demonstrate the correctness of your algorithm.

• Check your results before creating your script file.

• Points will be assigned on correctness, programming style, display, etc.

• The flow chart OR the pseudocode listing.
• A script file containing all of the following:
• A printout of the source program obtained by using the UNIX cat command
• A compilation of the program obtained by using the f77 command
• Results of execution the program with the given data sets obtained by using a.out
• Printouts of your input files obtained by using the cat command.

Recall: For this and all programming assignments you should follow good software engineering principles including documenting your program with comments and using meaningful names for variables. Failure to do this will lead to reduced credit.