This is my adventure in writing software for the Illuminato x Machina.

The IXM is an interesting platform, taking the limits of a von Neumann and twisting them by adding additional, closely connected computation units. Basically giving you a tiny network of computers that are self aware, robust, and viral (in a sense). It behaves similar to an Arduino in that it has a bootloader which is programmable through a USB/Serial connection. It can communicate on each of it's four sides and provide small visual feedback with LEDs on each edge and a centrally located RGB LED.

I picked up a Comp Sci Hack Pack, which includes a red programming terminal and 3 IXM cells. This allows for some parallel computations and other interesting experiments.

The files contained below are compilable and executable on each IXM cell.

References:

• http://illuminatolabs.com/IlluminatoXMachina.htm
• http://robust.cs.unm.edu/doku.php
• http://livingcomputation.com/s/doc/Tutorials.html
• http://livingcomputation.com/s/doc/index.html
• http://www.liquidware.com/shop/show/IXM/Illuminato+X+Machina