First, I thought "not so simple!" But it's wonderfully grokkable compared to zooming in on equivalent hardware and watching transistor states unfold.
I think I see the opposite - a Game of Life logic gate is way harder to understand than just a symbol representing the logic itself. And I see most logic gate transistor implementations as much simpler and so easier.
I meant zooming in on the hardware very literally. Watching electrons in a transistor. Logic diagrams are naturally easier to understand than what they describe.
Right but the motion of each signal is observable in the game of life version.
It's a funny coincidence, the game of life computer reminded me of the human computer they built in the book "Three Body Problem", and your comment uses the term "grok" from the book "Stranger in a Strange Land", two scifi books I read recently.
Let's write an algorithm that ranks HN by number of oblique sci-fi book references!
Conway would have loved this.
Fun challenge for AoC…
That's just beautiful!
could not find what the stack he used for the site, it looks so good and readable. Anyone have any clue ?
Now run DOOM on it
Now if there were some custom FPGA that ran the life rules…