The Powder Toy

Extremely compact programming system by Technomancer

Technomancer
Technomancer
95 / 5
2nd Aug 2015
3rd Aug 2015
This is an intriguing consequence of Ogsterduck's 'CRAY life' save. If you know what to do with this, please make whatever use of it you can. A more detailed explanation can be found in the save itself.
tptrevolution icantunderstand pseudorandom revolution complicated peculiar

Comments

  • Technomancer
    Technomancer     3rd Aug 2015
    @The_New_Powder - yes, you can do the same thing with LIFE if you know how, and it would be more flexible since you can use combinations of different types with different rules. The trade-off is that LIFE operates at about 9000 degrees and is messy if you fail to contain it, while this version CANNOT spread outside the predetermined grid.
  • BANGEXPLOSIVE
    BANGEXPLOSIVE     3rd Aug 2015
    TPT is open-source, and the pattern of sparks is indeed nonrandom, so with lots of work it MAY be possible to use extracts of TPT source code to get this to generate a desirable output. Ogesterduck is right, in that this program would need to be executed as a standalone program outside of TPT.
  • lagnificent
    lagnificent     3rd Aug 2015
    im one of the stupid people on this game, but i +1 anyways.
  • RCAProduction
    RCAProduction     3rd Aug 2015
    Genius! +1
  • ivel236
    ivel236     3rd Aug 2015
    This is really intriguing... Hopefully with some experiments, we could derive some sort of useful function for this. It would most certainly be a great seed generator for some sort of cryptographic machine.
  • choiahin
    choiahin     3rd Aug 2015
    That is, unless one is unfamiliar with GOL
  • choiahin
    choiahin     3rd Aug 2015
    I guess that you could program with this... but it would require A LOT of just random tries to get the sequence you want.
  • the_new_powder99999
    the_new_powder99999     3rd Aug 2015
    I don't know how to use this either, but would it be possible to make this smaller using actual life particles?
  • ArkaM
    ArkaM     3rd Aug 2015
    I think that it would be extremely difficult to store meaningful or predetermined data in such a form, like a program or a spark sequence, as no part of the data could be set without changing much of the rest. However, this would be an extremely fast and useful PRNG for TPT, with the random seed being the PSCN sequence.
  • Technomancer
    Technomancer     3rd Aug 2015
    Like I said in the save itself, I think the main usefulness of this would relate to stuff that I don't really know how to do, so it's hard for me to judge exactly how helpful it is. It just struck me as an intriguing novelty that someone else might be able to use. Plus it looks cool.