ConwayLife.com

Taking QFT to its logical conclusion, let's (maybe) build a working game console in GoL. It would have most of the circuitry on itself, but the games themselves would be detachable and interchangeable, and easy to program.

Rough blueprint:
Is this feasible?

But, how to become a player of a zero-player game?

Bullet51 wrote:But, how to become a player of a zero-player game?

You have to implement yourself (or an AI to play for you) inside CGoL.

Is this significantly different from what the QfT folks are planning already? I seem to recall they're plotting to try Pong next, using either the same computer hardware or the next generation of it.

I think the memory area could probably be swapped out in a big chunk that could be called the "cartridge". The separate window for a zoomed-in control area has been discussed on the Quest for Tetris challenges thread under "player controls". The screen area would take a bit more work, but it's been discussed somewhat on the QfT Stack Exchange discussion site. It hasn't been a priority yet, but it's not terribly difficult to wire up large display metacells to show the contents of a block of RAM metacells.

Bullet51 wrote:But, how to become a player of a zero-player game?

Edit it as it goes.

dvgrn wrote:Is this significantly different from what the QfT folks are planning already? I seem to recall they're plotting to try Pong next, using either the same computer hardware or the next generation of it.

I think the memory area could probably be swapped out in a big chunk that could be called the "cartridge". The separate window for a zoomed-in control area has been discussed on the Quest for Tetris challenges thread under "player controls". The screen area would take a bit more work, but it's been discussed somewhat on the QfT Stack Exchange discussion site. It hasn't been a priority yet, but it's not terribly difficult to wire up large display metacells to show the contents of a block of RAM metacells.

There should be an easily programmable "template" for games.

ok, what programming language should we use? Standard machine language? or some other language that's simple, but not esoteric?
how are we supposed to encode the instructions? by eaters? is the cartridge diagonal?

Redstoneboi wrote:ok, what programming language should we use? Standard machine language? or some other language that's simple, but not esoteric?

Why not Quest for Tetris Assembly (QFTASM)? At least until you've worked with it and understood it well enough to be able to suggest changes that everyone will agree are improvements.

Scroll down to "The Future of the Project" in the Quest for Tetris writeup -- you can follow rumors about continuing work on "higher-level language that compiles to QFTASM".

Redstoneboi wrote:how are we supposed to encode the instructions? by eaters? is the cartridge diagonal?

Again, this all sounds like an attempt to reinvent the wheel... and given how the Tetris computer works in practice, it doesn't seem like a reinvention that most people will find to be interesting to play around with for very long. There are just plain more entertaining ways to play games.

What's the current estimate for how many months or years of full-time development work will be needed to do the design and implementation work on this suspiciously vaporware-sounding 'easily programmable "template" for games'?

Personally, I don't understand the purpose of doing this in the game of life. If you want a simulated computer that can run at a reasonable speed and run games from a ROM cartridge, look at R16K1S60. There are plenty of virtual computers and even more CA or related media to create them in. If you're interested in complex logic circuitry or computing, using the game of life would simply hold you back.

Maybe there's an intersection between the sets of computer builders and CGOL conduit circuitry enthusiasts, but I don't think it's all that big. Also, the cartridge would probably be impractical anyway; most likely if this was done it'd be a script that overwrites a ROM or RAM contained within the computer.

Also, I'm assuming that by "template" KittyTac meant cartridge.

In conclusion, I think this will never happen. It probably wouldn't be very enjoyable to use and I don't know who'd be interested in making and programming it. This kind of thing already exists and the game of life is terrible for making logic circuitry in compared to the likes of Logic Land or The Powder Toy.

Yeah, and I've always thought it was rather silly to try and encode one-player games (which require input from the user during runtime) into a zero-player simulation in the first place; you'd basically have to violate the laws of the zero-player simulation (editing the pattern while it's running) just to be able to use the games.

Progress Quest?