Virtual Machine Screensaver

[username132]

One Mepis Live there is a screensaver called 'virtual machine' that appears to display a load of random coloured letters and numbers across the screen, kind of matrix stylee. Are these randomly calculated or are they actually displaying some sort of information like what the processor is up to?

[qeny]

The only lead I found was in the source at http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/sci...m-0.0.1.tar.gz.
It says:

INTRODUCTION
------------

This is an implementation of a virtual machine, which was used to
make a simulation of construction of automata under noisy environmental 
conditions. These automata are sequences of instructions in the mememory, and new threads with random instruction pointer are put in the list.mory of the
virtual machine, which can be executed by threads. 


BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE VM
---------------------------

Each thread has a stack and an instruction pointer. Overflow or underflow of the
stack causes a thread to terminate. Threads are put in a list. During each 
machine cycle, the threads from the list are subsequently executed. The threads
operate in a common machine memory.

There are the following instructions in the vm:

 S		-- end a thread.
 P n		-- push n onto a thread's stack.
 C		-- take from a thread's stack offset of the source area,
                   offset of th target area, and length of these areas,
                   and copy the source area to the target area.
 X		-- create a new thread with an empty stack, and
                   take from the current thread's stack the offset of the new 
                   thread instruction pointer.

If, after a cycle of the machine, the number of threads is larger than a
given amount, random threads are terminated until the number of threads
has the maximum value.

The machine's common memory is initialized with the `S' instruction in each of
its cells. Before each machine cycle, a random `noise' is added to the common
memory, and new threads with random instruction pointer are put in the list.


BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SIMULATION
-----------------------------------

The `noise' added to the memory, and the execution of threads causes 
constructions of various automata. 

Because construction of a new automata by self--replication of another
automata can be of a higher probability that its construction i. e. from the
environment noise, there can be stated a thesis, that under appriopriate
conditions, it is of a highest probability that automata that occur in a
large amount, have the feature of self-replication. 

The self-replication automata, in an environment with limited resources --
like common memory or a maximum number of threads -- can fall under the
process of selection. In the selection, there can be distinuished phenomena
like:

 1. Automata alteration.
 2. Gluing of automata from other automata pieces.
 3. Specialization of automata parts.

As an example, gluing of self--replication automata that make their copies 
relatively near to themselves, can result in automata that consist of several
similar parts. On the other hand, diverse environment conditions can cause
specialization of these parts.

[qeny]

Damn, I'd really really like it if anybody could explain this thing better.
What do the numbers mean?
What do the cells represent, memory, or instructions or threads or what?
How is the content of the memory related to the threads?
And what do the threads and memory have to do with automata?

I notice patterns like "C504C504C504C504C504C504C504C504" appearing, but how is this part of an automata?

There's a file Documentation.eps in the source that is supposed to explain it, but it uses really confusing English...