Comment by masswerk
9 years ago
See also here (PDP-1 emulation, running the Minskytron, Munching Squares, and more; includes a description of the program and a link to the annotated source code): http://www.masswerk.at/minskytron/
David Mapes invented the same algorithm, also on the PDP-1, at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL). While Minsky came across this algorithm by accident, Mapes arrived there by design. See http://www.masswerk.at/minskytron/davidmapes.html
P.S.: Traces of the Minskytron circle algorithm are also to be found in Spacewar!, the first digital video game (also for the PDP-1): In the main code, there's a parameter controlling "torpedo warpage" (normally set to a value causing no effect), which displaces the trajectory of a torpedo by the help of a modified version of Minsky's circle algorithm. Then there's also the first hyperspace patch (for Spacewar 2B) by Martin Graetz, displaying a special, Minskytron-inspired animation, called "warp-induced photonic stress emission", also known as the Minskytron-hyperspace. (For the latter, see http://www.masswerk.at/spacewar/inside/insidespacewar-pt8-hy... )