Wikipedia article about standard Wireworld

Let the Wireworld commence!

I'm curious about the rules of CH's variant. ;)

we could add antielectrons and recreate the big bang.

:D

sounds more like a challenge based on Fission ;)

I wonder if you could design a programming language based on Feynman diagrams... hmmm....

A wireworld computer has already been done, so I thought designing an anti-matter bomb would me more original.

I would want something to make wire-crossings easier.

@PhiNotPi "It also has 'tunnels' that can transport signals over long distances making routing much easier."

Okay then.

I'm writing up a quick sketch of what my special version of Wireworld was. We can use it if people think it sounds cool. I implemented it once in C# I think, but I don't want to bother rummaging through old hard drives.

sounds good to me

if we go with that a reimplementation as a stack snippet would make sense

Would JavaScript be fast enough to run a thousand steps per second?

I guess if that's necessary will depend on the actual challenge

We could probably write a hashlife-like simulation.

I wonder what Calvin has in store for us. Writing a WireWorld VHDL to design our own circuits?

Golfing the Wireworld computer?

I was thinking of designing some logic to link up some sensors with some actuators, requiring a bit of sequencing. Something like traps in Dwarf Fortress maybe.

That would be deliciously nerdy :)

3D wireworld

4D wireworld

You might end up with a Minecraft clone then

Run Minecraft in Wireworld?

The other way around might require less code

I kinda want a challenge in which the submissions are Wireworld circuits.

Sure, what else?

The format would be some png image, I suppose

you could rate the submissions based on the image size. A wireworld golf of a sort.

@kuroineko a program which generates wireworld automata

a program which finds patterns

a program that implements CH's wireworld variant

so many possibilities...

A wireworld compiler, or rather a wireworld circuit design language

After all some people did write a Piet compiler

Seriously, why not design puzzles that would require some interesting circuits to solve? Like sensors that would generate pulses that you'll have to count or combine to trigger some mechanism. All that would be relatively easy to represent on a simple png image, and writing a controller seems doable.

Ok, here we go

Rudimentary outline of my ideas: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B8QvEyqfWRNDNG1wcGlmQXdIblE/view?usp=sharing

I'm reading it right now...

I think there should be a better way to "label" modules.

Actually, the current method may work, we just need to "playtest" it.

@Calvin'sHobbies if a cell is neighbour both to your end of a tunnel and another one, is it a neighbour or not? (i.e. which rule takes precedence)

Like XUXUX where the middle wire neighbors both tunnel ends? All the X's are neighbors. The middle X connects to a tunnel end that is not the end the left X is on so they are neighbors.

A suggestion for tunnels: a single tunnel end would act as a single unit, turning off or on in unison (like a B or D group). Two instances of the same tunnel end are considered adjacent.

In HU...UX, the H would activate the U, which activates the second U, which activates the X. This will probably be easier than trying to determine which cells are adjacent.

@PhiNotPi Hmm, so it'd be more like a global wireless wire. That could work. Two drawbacks: 1. tunnel based circuits would have more delay. 2. we'd need another state

@Calvin'sHobbies yeah, thought so, but I think the current wording is a bit ambiguous (because I think it ends with "unless it neighbours the same tunnel" somewhere)

To cut down delay, you could make all tunnels of the same shape activate in unison. H activates U (which activates the second U in the same time step) which activates X.

That would also prevent backflow in tunnels.

@Calvin'sHobbies do you know whether you want to make people implement wireworld, or golf a wireworld automaton, or write a program whose outputs are wireworld automata, or ... ?

Maybe you could treat tunnels like modules, but with a single global instance instead of local instances.

@MartinBüttner I think it would be cool to have people golf a wireworld device, though that would require a full implementation. I can't say I fancy implementing my version.

:D

well I think just golfing your version wouldn't be very interesting or enjoyable (and golfing vanilla wireworld has already been done)... so I think it should really either be golfing in (your or vanilla) wireworld, or code that generates wireworld automata to fulfil certain tasks. both of the latter do need an implementation from us though, but I think they could both be very interesting.

I also think it would be interesting if the submissions are circuits.

(and once you've got that implementation, nothing's stopping you from reusing it for future challenges ;))

but as I said, all of these ideas also work for vanilla wireworld, if you think your version may be too much after all

@MartinBüttner I totally agree that golfing my version would not be fun while golfing the circuitry it can make would be. I'd prefer to use my version rather than vanilla just for something different, I just don't know if I'd have the time/energy to implement it (and I don't want to ask/force anyone else to).

in principle, I wouldn't mind helping out, but I'm not sure I can justify this kind of effort with my final-year project looming over me and me already wasting enough time on PPCG anyway :D

@Calvin'sHobbies you could always strip down the concept

e.g. for a golfing-in-wireworld challenge you wouldn't really need the buttons and displays

and you could probably simplify the module concept, too, by not matching up one-by-one, but by treating them similarly to tunnels (all inputs on one side are neighbours to all the cells on the that side within the module)

Right, maybe just modules and linkers. That's the most interesting part I think. Hmm..

@PhiNotPi I do love the idea of scoring circuit entries by how much area they take up or how many non-empty spaces they have and such.

@Calvin'sHobbies I'd prefer the latter

this sounds familiar ;)

:D

@VisualMelon how is your JavaScript? :P

@MartinBüttner non-existant

@MartinBüttner But then how could you make a module with 2 or more distinct inputs/outputs. The signals would all cross. I guess they could have 4, one for each side, but that still seems limited.

@Calvin'sHobbies yeah, it would be sort of limited to 4.

I'm not experienced enough with wireworld to judge if that's very limiting or not

Ha, well me neither tbh. Anyway, I may just hunker down and implement some subset of my ideas this weekend. Not today though

I'm a little out of the loop with fortnightly challenges. Is there a date they're supposed to be posted by? (Or just before the next one?)