Freeware — WATOR Screensaver

Download
(26 KB)

Download Source
(38 KB)

WATOR is a 'Fish vs. Sharks' screensaver for Windows that was inspired by A. K. Dewdney's article in the December 1984 edition of Scientific American. It graphically depicts the interaction between populations of sharks and fish in a toroidal world governed by user-configurable parameters. Both species will breed, and while fish are happy just to swim, sharks will starve if they don't eat regularly. As the fish population flourishes, more and more sharks will survive and breed, until the sharks over-deplete the fish population and start dying out themselves. Although driven by random chance, the resulting patterns are ever-changing and frequently pleasing to the eye.

Here are some settings that appear to generate stable populations:

Init. Fish Population	Fish Gestation	Init. Shark Population	Shark Gestation	Shark Starvation
25%	2	5%	4	2
50%	1	5%	4	3
65%	3	10%	6	5

Installation & Usage

Copy the Wator.scr file to your system directory; it can then be enabled and configured through the "Display" control panel settings.

Latest Version

v1.00.0001 dated 5 Sep '03 (md5sum: 2762eb8682a6eafe752b38995a36d4df)

System Requirements

Windows 95 / 98 / NT4 / 2000 / XP

2005.08.05-14:41