Today I had an insight to switch the initial state to a simple vertical 3 cell stack. This was to make it easier to debug since the next generations are periodic and my code should show alternating points. The simplified conditions allowed me to figure out the proper algorithm structure:

1. Find dead cells.
2. Calculate new alive cells.
3. Remove the original dead cells.
4. Generation complete

Previously I was checking AND removing dead cells before finding the next generation’s alive cells.

The next step is to reorganize my code, verify the results, and then convert to a GUI or TUI.