Low-tech universal computing

[pcallahan]

Here are the same tiles with matching contours. I don't have a way to make them with magnetic sheets, because my scissor skills (and appetite for tedious work) limit me to straight lines. A craft die cutter such as a Cricut might help. I intend to explore this option, but only if I really have the time, which I don't right now.

Screen Shot 2021-07-05 at 10.03.17 AM.png (441.21 KiB) Viewed 440 times

The contours are placed to avoid splitting the diamond shapes. I'm mixed on whether that's a plus. I have noticed that seeing half-diamonds is useful for predicting births before placing the next tile. However, the contour itself could serve that purpose. I made these by starting with the square tiles and constructing clip paths in Inkscape, sized to fit tiles.

Here's a shared doc with tiles that can be moved and placed: https://docs.google.com/drawings/d/1Tu4 ... sp=sharing

For those who don't want to click, here are some still life patterns rendered with the tiles.

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[pcallahan]

This isn't low-tech since it's requires running Scratch in a web browser, but it is more convenient than making actual Life tiles. It's a small Scratch project I wrote to create and place tiles. There are a lot of features I could add, but this provides about the same functionality as having magnetic tiles on a white board. Tiles snap to the grid to avoid any fumbling lining them up. It takes a little while to get the hang of which tile to place since each one overlaps a 2x2 cell window, but it is pretty easy to rotate tiles and match them by trial and error (whether to verify still lifes or analyze any other Moore neighborhood pattern one step ahead).

Scratch link: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/552002327/

Screen shot:

Screen Shot 2021-07-09 at 11.34.34 AM.png (123.4 KiB) Viewed 411 times

Update: I added another feature to switch between different tile representations.

[pcallahan]

Back to the manual approach. Here's a still life constructed entirely by hand using tiles. It's pretty obvious, to be clear. It's loaf welded to loop and some extra stuff to prevent births in between.

20210716_180318.jpg (176.28 KiB) Viewed 356 times

Double-checking here:

Code: Select all

x = 9, y = 9, rule = B3/S23
4b2ob2o$b2o2bobo$o2b2o2bo$obo2b2o$bo2bo$5b4o$8bo$5b3o$5bo!

I started with a loaf and did not intend to add the loop. I added a single extra cell and one thing led to another. Is this fun? It is too easy for people who build still lifes in their head, and I'm sure some are out there. It is probably baffling to most normal human beings, both what it means and why they should do it. In between, I don't know. It was fairly amusing to me.