Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Fig. 8.
Touching the BioWall cells in order to physically give birth to a square block
in the Life environment (Photograph by A. Badertscher).
either birth in the Life context or self-replication and self-destruction in the loop
context (Figure 8).
The field-programmable gate array (FPGA) forming the cell's internal digital
circuit is configured so as to implement: (1) the data processing of the external
(touch) input, (2) the Life state machine, the loop state machine, the pseudo-
random number generator, and the context-switching unit of the CA cell, and
(3) the control of the output display. This latter is a two-color LED display that
allows the user to view the cell's current state in both contexts and whether the
loop cell is in activated or deactivated mode.
6 Concluding Remarks
The ability to interact physically with a CA universe—a little-studied issue—is
of fundamental import where cellular devices are concerned: one must be able to
enter input and to view the output if any practical application is envisaged [1].
Our ongoing work concerns the design and emergence of interactive cellular
replicators implemented in hardware, an issue which we believe will play an
important role in the future of such devices.
Acknowledgments.
This work was supported in part by the Swiss National
Science Foundation under grant 20-63711.00, by the Leenaards Foundation, Lau-
sanne, Switzerland, and by the Villa Reuge, Ste-Croix, Switzerland.
