Friday 29 March 2013

Cellular Automata Sequencer (panel 9)

This is a sequencer based on cellular automata (CA) rules 90 and 150. A panel contains 6 neighbourhoods, each neighbourhood has 4 cells, with cell #2 being the boss.

This description might get very complex very quickly so just scroll down to look at the block diagram and panel layout if that helps.

Each neighbourhood is independent but they may be patched together as the you like to get a 24 stage sequencer or used as 6 individual 4 stage sequencers or anything in-between.

Each cell has its own gate output so can be used to animate the left or right input of any other neighbourhood. It means multiple sequences can be set up to be running in parallel off the same clock (or off different clocks if desired).

Each cell also has a pot to give a variable voltage. The voltages for the 4 cells of each neighbourhood are summed and these can be chained across all neighbourhoods using the CV inputs or the negative CV inputs. Each neighbourhood also gives a 'random' CV, not true random but good luck trying to work out what it is doing. this 'random' CV could be chained with CV signals from other neighbourhoods as well.

The logic chips in each neighbourhood can be changed to conform to different CA rules, although XOR seem to give the best results. If one neighbourhood has an XNOR chip it could be used as the 'seed' neighbourhood to animate the others, rather than using external signals.

Build manual (includes schematic) is HERE 1.3Mb
User Guide is HERE (pdf 800kb)
See THIS POST to buy panels and build your own.

















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