Get the latest tech news
A Simple CPU on the Game of Life (2021)
Abstract: An implementation of a minimal CPU on Conway's the Game of Life (an 'unlimited register machine'), and runs at ~10Hz.
First described as a mathematical formaliziation of what is computable, a URM is a Turing complete, four-instruction CPU that should (in theory) have an unlimited numver of registers, each of which can hold unbounded integers. You might recall how earlier we used to fact to design an edge detector that would reliably determine whenever the signal has gone from 1 to 0 by building a small circuit that A AND (NOT B) and connecting the same input to both A and B, but because there is a slightly longer wire leading to B, it does what we want. Instead, I'll steal a page from MIPS and declare that the instruction after a branch is always executed, regardless of whether or not the condition was true; if you have some work that should always happen it can go here, otherwise just stick a no-op there and pretend it was a stall.
Or read this on Hacker News
