Folks, I was sad to learn overnight that the mathematician John Horton Conway <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Horton_Conway> died last week of a COVID-19 infection. Conway was one of those off-beat polymaths who worked across many disciplines. In Knuth's epic series TAOP <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Computer_Programming> the name J H Conway pops-up all over the place in references, often when discussing the complexity of classic programming algorithms.
I mainly associate him with the invention of The Game of Life <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life> in the early 70s. One of the first serious programs I wrote was a Life simulator in COBOL on a mainframe which printed the results on 15x11" fan-fold paper (I still have some sample pages). There are free PC programs available that play the game at blazing speed at arbitrary resolution on any window size, and it's quite hypnotic to watch. The game soaked up so much precious CPU time back then that some wits suggested it was a Russian plot to impede the progress of Western computer technology. Cheers, *Greg Keogh*
