Von Neumann´s 29-state cellular automaton: a hardware implementation

In the early 1950s, John von Neumann designed a cellular automaton implementing a universal self-replicating structure. More than 40 years after his death, the first hardware implementation of von Neumann´s transition rule is presented. Unfortunately, this implementation only allows small systems to be realized, and not the complete structure, which would require 100000-200000 cells, according to some estimations. A logic circuit which implements the transition rule and represents a single cell of the array has been developed. The applications of this implementation lie mainly in the pedagogical domain. It can be used as a demonstration tool for courses on cellular automata