I wrote one in 68000 assembly on my Atari ST which implemented the life rules using bitwise logic. That meant I could do 32 cells in parallel in a kind of primi

I wrote one in 68000 assembly on my Atari ST which implemented the life rules using bitwise logic. That meant I could do 32 cells in parallel in a kind of primitive SIMD! The most mind blowing algorithm has to be hashlife though. Well worth studying for those aha moments.