Scorbie wrote:I think a smaller demonoid with H precursors (namely g4 signals?) as the tape could be made?? (Yeah... I think I do seem to have a firm argument considering my knowledge in self-building circuitry...
Certainly smaller than the current 0hd Demonoid, but maybe not smaller than the smallest Demonoid that we can now build with syringes and a single-channel construction toolkit.
It might be hard to prove that it will be smaller without actually building it, anyway. This new splitter has a repeat time of 98 ticks, which matches the
97-tick repeat time of a G4 receiver very nicely, but looking again, I think the best G4 transmitter only starts working at 118 ticks:
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x = 78, y = 57, rule = LifeHistory
64.A$63.A$63.3A14$44.A.A$44.2A$45.A12$34.A$34.A.A$34.2A$73.A$71.3A$
16.2A36.A15.A$16.2A20.A15.3A13.2A4.2A$36.3A18.A18.A$35.A20.2A16.A.A$
35.2A37.2A4$2A$2A$16.A21.2A$11.2A.2A22.2A$11.2A2.2A2$8.A$6.3A$5.A$5.
2A24.2A$17.2A12.A35.2A$17.2A6.A6.3A32.2A$24.A.A7.A$25.A!
I'm not sure anyone has checked if there's a universal single-channel toolkit that doesn't need any glider spacings down below 98 ticks, let alone 118 ticks. If it exists, it will probably be at least somewhat less efficient...?
Oddly enough, it's really not all that much more expensive to build a syringe nowadays, than to build a regular Spartan circuit. And with single-channel construction available, we don't necessarily need a Herschel splitter in a Geminoid universal constructor, because we don't have to feed an edge-shooter, because we no longer need to line up glider pairs.
Edge shooters are still fairly useful in Demonoids, just because of the geometry: it's nice when the object you want to construct is all on one side or the other of the upper-arm construction lanes. But there are workarounds available even there.
A Spartan Herschel splitter isn't even strictly necessary in a quadratic-growth replicator, though it might come in handy for the data-copying stage. I'm definitely looking forward to having it available for more complicated self-constructing circuitry, though, such as a metacell replicator...!
EDIT: I haven't seen yet how to get the geometry right, to use the new Spartan Herschel splitter in a Demonoid, without adding a lot of extra conduits that make the construction not-so-small-after-all. E.g., you usually have to add a dependent conduit to one of the outputs to suppress that Herschel's first natural glider.