You have chosen to partake of our journey and download Project Ouroborus. It is proper that a prayer be said at the commencement of a sojourn, and whether this be a fanciful stroll along the forest's edge or a lifetime voyage you now undertake, we pray that you may find in this material inspiration for your own contemplation, and that thus inspired you may then give back to others that each may follow his or her path, and all together we may profit.
Here we present our lapis philosophorum, that those with eyes may see it:
And some additional information:
Linux: Birdcage is currently being developed in Debian. The above tarball contains our latest developments. To get birdcage up and running, follow these instructions:
./compile.sh
in order to compile the Pyrex modules.python start.py
(the full audiovisual simulation). You are also welcome to try
python start.py debug normal (a text render of the simulation),
python start.py threaded normal (a multi-threaded audiovisual version)
and python start.py visual normal (a visual-only rendering).Windows: The development of birdcage started on Windows, so at some point it had been successfully installed, compiled and run on Windows XP. The 0.1.0 release zipball dates from those days, so you should have no problem installing it. You might even try to install and run our current code. If you succed you could become our glorious Windows porter. The procedure to install the zipball is pretty straightforward:
c:\Python24\Lib\site-packagesstart_ouroborus.py onto your desktop or other readily accessible
location - just double click on it and pronto! Ouroborus is running...Unix: All of our code is written in either Python or Pyrex, and should be platform-independent; however half-hearted attempts at running Ouroborus on OS-X failed...if you wish to have a go, please report your success (or lack thereof).
If you download the stable versions of the following software from the Debian repositories, Birdcage should run perfectly fine. If you, for some reason, wish to install a version prior to 0.2, look at the list of old dependencies.
Python: This paragon of free languages is
included with Debian distributions. An upgrade to the dev version might be
necessary. Ouroborus would not be at all without Guido's precious gem. Read more
about Python on its official website.
version tested: 2.5.2-dev
Pyrex: An extension of Python which allows
you to effortlessly optimize otherwise sluggish code. Look for it in its
own website.
version tested: 0.9.8.5
Csound: A powerful and versatile sound synthesis
software that can work either in real-time or as a compiler. Csound is a
requisite to the sound-enabled versions of Birdcage. For more information on
Csound visit its website.
version tested: 5.08 (double samples)
Python-Csound: This is the Python binding for
the Csound API. There is currently no information on the web about this package
maintained by Felipe Sateler.
version tested: 5.08
Python prides itself on being backwards-compatible, so if you download the newest versions of the following software, Ouroborus should, in theory, run perfectly fine. Sadly, we have found this to be false. We are currently working on solving our dependency issues; however, if you download and install the versions provided here (once again for Windows only, apologies to UNIX hackers), you should be able to get Ouroborus up and running.
Python: Download an old version,
2.3.4, of this paragon of free languages.
The newest build may be downloaded from the
official website.
Ouroborus would not be at all without Guido's precious gem.
version tested: 2.3.4
wxPython: This is a prerequisite for running
Pygame. The version we use is
2.6-Unicode.
You may of course check out wxPython's
own website.
version tested: 2.6-win32-unicode2.6.1.0-Python2.3
Pygame: A package designed primarily for
video game display. Here we offer
version 1.6 for guaranteed
compatibility. Download the latest version from its
homepage. This is used by the view modules.
version tested: 1.6-win32-Python2.3
Numeric: An unmaintained package also known as
numeric Python. It is used by the view and
mundem modules. The version needed by Ouroborus at present is
Numeric 24.2.
version tested: 24.2-win32-Python2.3
Pyrex: An extension of Python which allows
you to effortlessly optimise otherwise sluggish code. Look for it in its
own website.
The birdcage cellular automaton engine is written in this language. YOU
DO NOT NEED TO INSTALL PYREX in order to run Ouroborus, but you do if
you wish to tinker with the engine. Here is the
version we used.
version tested: 0.9.3
A complete downloadable list of earlier releases, in reverse chronological order, for those interested in our obscure history. Please remember to remove the version number from the downloaded directory's name, if you wish to run it!