Reminds me of John von Neumann's 29 state cellular automata [1], which he used to build a universal constructor [2], but that historic rule made it much harder to cross signals. (You could easily modify the rule to make that easier, but then it wouldn't be historically accurate, which is what makes it so interesting: he designed the rule and the universal constructor in his extremely powerful mind and on ordinary paper!) It's able to create and destroy wires, to the extent that it can actually build other machines and even replicate itself.<p>[1] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_cellular_automaton" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_cellular_automaton</a><p>[2] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_universal_constructor" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Von_Neumann_universal_construc...</a>