Imagine what you could do...
Written on October 5th, 2025 by Tech Ads
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CA Lab may be played from the keyboard like a “color
organ,” or programmed to follow whichever rules you care
to devise in BASIC, Pascal, or C. Use CA Lab as a computer
laboratory for simulating physical processes, or simply
enjoy the play of mandalas, chaos eggs, and butterfly guns
that populate these realms.
CA Lab was conceived and created for Autodesk by Rudy
Rucker, twice winner of the Philip K. Dick Award for Best
‘Novel. In addition to his wildly comic science fiction
odysseys (Software, Wetware, The Secret of Life), Rucker is
well known for such best-selling books on mathematics as
Mind Tools and The Fourth Dimension. His CA Lab Manual, at
260 + pages, is both a concise, practical guide to the CA Lab
software, and a witty, personal introduction to an emerging
science.
CA Lab is available at a suggested retail price of $59.95.
For information on how to order CA Lab, call Autodesk toll
free at 800-525-2763.
Imagine what you could do if you were among the first explorers of a new
world, privileged to coin names for bizarre creatures and wander among un-
earthly formations. Imagine making major discoveries simply by being the first
to spot things the rest of the world will soon be clamoring to see. For years, new
frontiers have been in short supply. The seas are charted, the continents explored,
the maps all made...but a new world is opening, and you can travel there today
with the Rudy Rucker CA Lab from Autodesk.
The Rudy Rucker CA Lab is a set of floppy disks which suit any IBM-compatible
personal computer, from the least expensive monochrome clone to the fastest
high-resolution system. Easily installed, the CA Lab software instantly carries the
user into the infinite, ever-changing world of cellular automata. These simple
yet intricate patterns are revolutionizing such diverse fields as physics, comput-
ing, biology and digital imaging. Yet most applications for cellular automata
remain to be discovered—and CA Lab is the perfect tool for discovering them.
Whether you are an experienced hacker or a computer novice, the Rudy Rucker
CA Lab will prove a mind-expanding aid to your imagination. On monochrome
screens, CA Lab presents bold, living tapestries of light; on VGA monitors, 256
colors bring subtle shading and luminous, liquid hues to an infinite range of
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‘Imagine what you could do…’
Rudy Rucker’s CA Lab (also known as ‘CA Lab: Rudy Rucker’s Cellular Automata Laboratory’) was a cellular automata playground produced by AutoDesk (yes, that AutoDesk!). ‘CA Lab: Rudy Rucker’s Cellular Automata Laboratory’ was later renamed to CelLab and, in 2017, a web version was launched.
A talk on cellular automata by Rudy Rucker - with demonstrations in CA Lab - can be found below.
Taken from: Mondo 2000 - Issue 1 (Fall 1989)
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