Details
The Byl's loop was developed just a few years after Langton's simplification of Codd's automaton, which produced a simpler automaton that would reproduce itself in 151 time-steps. John Byl simplified Langton's automaton further, with an even smaller automaton that reproduced in just 25 time-steps. Byl's automaton consisted of an array of 12 chips — of which 4 or 5 could be counted as the instruction tape — and 43 transition rules, while Langton's device consisted of some 10»15 chips, including an instruction tape of 33 chips, plus some 190 transition rules.
Essentially, the simplification consisted in using less cellular states (6 as compared with Langton's 8) and a smaller replicating loop (12 cells as compared with Langton's 86).
In 1989, John Byl devised a self-reproducing automata so small, twelve cells in six states with fifty-seven transition rules, that it undermines "von Neumann's 'complexity threshold' separating trivial from non-trivial self-replication" (Sigmund 1993:24).
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