Re: How to write a self-referencial TM?

On 16/05/2025 12:22, Andy Walker wrote:

On 16/05/2025 01:40, Mike Terry wrote:
[...]

[wij's] question "what is the source of such UTM?" seems to be asking
to be pointed to some sample source code for a UTM?  I don't have
any!  But I'm sure someone somewhere will have gone to all the
trouble of coding an actual UTM, and will have made that available
online somewhere.  Note that a UTM is a firstly a TM, but TMs can be
described as text "source code" and someone could have made that
available online.
Perhaps someone else here knows of useful sources for this?

      Minsky's "Computation" has on its front cover [at least in the
Open University edition] and inside, as Fig. 7.2.9 on p142, a complete
UTM as a state-transition diagram.  ICBA to count [or to look for more
details in the text], but it has ~20 states and uses ~10 symbols.  It
would represent perhaps an hour's [routine] work to convert into the
standard quintuples, or a similar amount of work to convert to C.  The
text describes fully how an arbitrary TM, expressed as quintuples, and
its input tape, should be represented on the UTM's tape.

I found it on Amazon, and sure enough there on its front cover is the state transition diagram!  It sounds like a great book, but realistically I've already got too many books in my reading list... Maybe I should stop following comp.theory.  :)
Mike.