Slashdot Mirror

So the guy wrote an emulator of the 6502 processor and various perihipals as a native-code plugin for the game. Technically, it does not seem so special, as various 6502 emulators have been written before; they just usually have a more usable GUI than operating them from within a 3D game.

I would be much more impressed if they actually implemented a general purpose computer by only using readily-available in-game building blocks and mechanics without code extensions to the game engine. This has been done for Conway's Game of Life and a Turing Machine before.

That's nothing, someone implemented a Turing Machine in Conway's Game of Life.

FYI, http://rendell-attic.org/gol/tm.htm is the homepage of the GoL Turing machine. It was created back in 2000.

Well, if you're going to make a Turing machine run something equivalent to Conway's Game of Life, forget the random: have the simulation be A Turing Machine in Conway's Game of Life.

If a computer can do it, so can this Turing Machine implemented in Conway's Game of Life. It's just a little slow.

Your questions are probably rhetorical, but anyway, the answer to both is "no". (assuming the fully general case allowing all initially finite configurations)

A universal Turing machine has been implemented in Life: http://www.rendell-attic.org/gol/tm.htm

Why 17 years after "Nanosystems" was published do we still not have an complete atomic level design for a molecular nanoassembler?

Patience, young grasshopper. Game of Life rules published in Martin Gardners column in October 1970, first turing machine in GoL that I'm aware of, April 2000. Wait at least another 13 years or so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life#cite_note-0

http://www.rendell-attic.org/gol/tm.htm
 

The Game of Life thing is awesome. Now he just needs to use it to simulate a Turing machine. Then the universe can implode.

Universal Turing Machine. Implemented using Conway's Game of Life.

Just amazing. If you know what those words mean, you HAVE to check that pattern out. I could watch in run for days. Just mind blowing.

My personal favorites are computers built in Game of Life and a model railroad.

My personal favorites are computers built in Game of Life and a model railroad.

Oh, I was going to write it for a Turing machine, running in Conway's Game of Life, implemented in Postscript.

A turing version of conway's game of life. But on reflection, if the "dominos" were something like charged nanotubes, then the creation of computing structures could be "grown" in a much different way then current cpu's, kind of think that's neat.