[Coco] Feralcore: An Internet Protocol Based on the 6809

[Adam Young]

Fedor,

Thanks for your kind words. It may be possible to use Feralcore
for researching artificial life. But this was not the focus,
certainly not to the extent of Network Tierra. This is evident
in the choice of the 6809 as the instruction set. There are no
special provisions for the automatic evolution of the feralcore
instruction set or running programs. But, don't let me discourage
you. Feel free to assess Feralcore for artificial life research.

There are many different ways to view Feralcore, one of which is
a potentially massive networked corewar game. But it is setup
as a general computation/communications framework now, so the
form factor is unlike corewar. Corewar games are well-defined
(time limit, clear end-game state, etc.). This is not currently the
case in Feralcore. Feralcore is also a framework for researching
various new approaches to computer networking.

Feralcore is related to, but different from the notion of an
"Active Network", an area of active research in the 1990s. In
an active network, the routers are active and the packets are
executable. A big difference is, in feralcore, the machines at
the edges of the network execute packets, not routers in the
middle of the network.

Adam


--- On Sat, 6/26/10, Fedor Steeman <petrander at gmail.com> wrote:

> From: Fedor Steeman <petrander at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [Coco] Feralcore: An Internet Protocol Based on the 6809
> To: "CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts" <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> Date: Saturday, June 26, 2010, 12:37 PM
> Hi Adam,
> 
> That sounds awesome!
> 
> Have you ever considered using it or a spin-off to emulate
> evolutionary
> processes? The neat thing about the Tierra simulation by
> Thomas Ray is that
> it uses the Darwinian processes of mutation and natural
> selection to let the
> virtual organisms evolve autonomously. The great thing is
> that it shows the
> power of evolution for the development of complex
> adaptations and
> innovations. Well, of course, our entire existance shows
> that, but is neat
> to be able to emulate it and see it happen.
> 
> I can clearly remember the 'wow'-effect when I first heard
> about the Tierra
> project during the early nineties, when I, incidentally,
> was in the middle
> of my biology studies. The past decade of my CoCo revival I
> have been
> speculating about doing a similar emulation of evolution by
> natural
> selection on the CoCo. But that is just another one of
> those cool ideas for
> which I will probably never get the time and
> skills/experience to actually
> finish.
> 
> Cheers,
> Fedor
> 
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