Quantum Coreworld -- interim release now available
ASW
* http://genetics.med.harvard.edu/~await/qcw/
- First public release described in "The Quantum Coreworld:
Competition and Cooperation in an Artificial Ecology". See:
* http://genetics.med.harvard.edu/~await/alife9
- This is an INTERIM release. I am making it available primarily
to solicit comments, suggestions etc.
- From the README:
____________________
What is the Quantum Coreworld?
The Quantum Coreworld is an abstract world inhabited
by assembly language programs. This language-- an
extended version of Corewar's Redcode-- permits
programs to use quantum operations on quantum bits
(qubits). The goal of the project is to engineer, or
discover, a toy Quantum lifeform.
- Based on the pMars codebase written by Ma, Sieben, Strack and
Wangsawidjaja. ASW is now the principle author. The software
integrates libQuantum (quantum mechanics), md5 and ISAAC
(cryptographic hash and pseudorandomness). It links with
Imagemagick for better visualization of simulations (planned)
and relies on Perl and R for general scripting and statistical
analysis. The code can be tried live over the Internet. See:
- Support for '94 Redcode is planned. Since the ICWS
(International Core War Society) dissolved in the early 1990s,
no Redcode standard was ratified since '88. It might be nice
to have the standardization process taken up by an interested
standards body or an international society.
- Generic graphical debugging on all platforms with Simple
Direct Layer (SDL) graphics is planned. In particular, support
is planned for Windows. Native support for other (older)
platforms is possible but in the absence of interest and/or
volunteer developers these have been removed from the codebase.
- I wrote a graphical Redcode simulator (and integrated
debugger) in 1990 for the Amiga system. From 1993-1999 I
managed a CAD/CAM software start-up and participated in the
development of IPC-ANSI 2511 (GenCAM). I taught assembly
language at McGill university in summer 2000 and spring 2001.
I have worked with the pQmars codebase for six months and
these efforts should begin to pay off in the near term. While
I hope the Quantum Coreworld is of interest to professional
Biologists, Physicists and Computer Scientists, I hope it is
of equal interest to the Free Software community. The project
is in need of volunteer testers, developers, documenters and
evangelists; coordination of these efforts-- as the
development site is setup-- takes place through the newsgroup
REC.GAMES.COREWAR and on IRC at IRC.KOTH.ORG.
- A conversation with M. Joonas Pihlaja, in IRC, led to the
current release.
- This project could never have been started in earnest
without the support of my graduate advisers in Computer
Science, Gilles Brassard and Claude Crepeau. It could not
have been completed without the support of my current graduate
adviser in Biophysics, George Church. I am also grateful for
the perseverence of my qualifying exam committee, Jack
Szostak, Shamil Sunyaev and Rachelle Gaudet.
- I have benefited from the advice of many people while working
on this project. I appreciate all of your efforts-- thank-you!
--ASW