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Evolution in Pixels
"I'd like to show you real evolution happening out here in the wild, but even with stick insects it would take too long in real time. But I can show you evolution happening in the computer. I call these creatures biomorphs." -- Richard Dawkins, "The Blind Watchmaker" (BBC Horizon, 1987)
Dawkins also presented Arthromorphs and Colour Biomorphs in the 1991 Royal Institution Christmas Lectures, entitled "Growing Up in the Universe":
Read Richard Dawkins' reflection on the development of the Watchmaker Suite of computer programs, excerpted from This is my Vision of Life.
Download
- Sourceforge Project site
- Download WatchmakerSuite.jar: All platforms, must have Java Runtime Environment installed from Oracle.
- Download Monchrome Biomorphs and Arthromorphs for Mac OSX
Contribute
Pascal Source Documentation
Classic Watchmaker Suite, Pascal Source Editions
This subproject, found, is used for the preservation, documentation, and curatorial maintenance of Richard Dawkins' original source code. This is where to go to learn:- Resuscitate Watchmaker.sitx The "archaeology" of Watchmaker Suite: the contents of the original files emailed to the project by Richard Dawkins January 5, 2015. All other project versions of Watchmaker Suite are derived from this original archive file.
- The lightly edited version "WatchmakerForTP4.0.sit" for Classic Macintosh (Alan Canon, February 2015) which contains a the original Think Pascal 4.0 compiler (with supplied patch installed; working modern and legacy-compiled versions of all four Watchmaker programs; Think Pascal project files for all source code, with Resource (RSRC) files included.
Richard Dawkins Watchmaker Suite, Second Edition (Think Pascal + Free Pascal + FPDoc)
This important subproject is responsible for curating revised versions of Richard Dawkins' original code. Backwards compatibility is maintained for the original Think Pascal 4.0 compiler running on Mac System 7.1, while support for compilation under Free Pascal (against a dummy implementation of the Mac Classic Toolbox) is added. Finally, the acheivement of cross-compilability under legacy and modern compilers means that modern machine-assisted source documentation tools, such as Free Pascal's FPDoc
Annotated Original Pascal Source Documentation (pasdoc) (obsolete)
These documents, generated using the pasdoc tool in October 2015, are now (or will be soon) superceded by the fpdocs at the Second Edition subproject (see above.)