
It is a silicon implementation of Conway's Game of Life. The game is played on a 8x32 grid, and the rules are as follows:
Demo mode:
The demo mode loads a pre-defined game into the grid and advances it automatically.
To enter the demo mode, wr_en high while reseting the design (rst_n low).
Use the pattern_sel inputs to select the desired demo pattern.
Set en to 1 to automatically advance one generation every 0.4 seconds (assuming a 10MHz clock).
To pause the game, set en to 0.
Manual mode:
Load the initial grid row by row.
Each row is loaded by selecting the row number (using the row_sel[4:0] inputs),
setting the cell_in[7:0] inputs to the desired state, and pulsing the wr_en input.
Once the grid is loaded, set the en input to 1 to start the game.
The game will advance one step in each clock cycle.
To pause the game, set the en input to 0.
To view the current state of the grid, set the row_sel[4:0] inputs to the desired row number,
max7219_en to 0, and read the cell_out[7:0] outputs.
Alternatively, set max7129_en to 1 to display the grid on a MAX7219 LED Matrix (FC-16 module).
MAX7219 LED Matrix (FC-16 module)
| # | Input | Output | Bidirectional |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | row_sel[0] / pattern_sel | cell_out[0] / max7129_cs | cell_in[0] |
| 1 | row_sel[1] | cell_out[1] / max7129_clk | cell_in[1] |
| 2 | rol_sel[2] | cell_out[2] / max7129_din | cell_in[2] |
| 3 | rol_sel[3] | cell_out[3] | cell_in[3] |
| 4 | rol_sel[4] | cell_out[4] | cell_in[4] |
| 5 | max7129_en | cell_out[5] | cell_in[5] |
| 6 | en | cell_out[6] | cell_in[6] |
| 7 | wr_en | cell_out[7] | cell_in[7] |