The Armchair Universe

What Hacker News says

1. scrapheapNov 2025
   Stand out books for me that I've read this year:

   * The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler (Short, but a great read)

   * The Incandescent by Emily Tesh

   * The Armchair Universe by A.K.Dewdney (First read this one many years ago, but I've been reading it again)

   * Final Orbit by Chris Hadfield (third book in a series, so you'd want to start at the begining with The Apollo Murders)

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2. JKCalhounMar 2024
   He had an outsized impact on me as well. My very first programming experiments (learning on the Macintosh) were predator-prey simulations (fish vs. sharks — he called it "Wa-Tor" since his ocean grid wrapped around with a toroidal topology.)

   Re-reading his stuff now is fun: I find I understand it a lot better than college-age me did back in the 1980's.

   Plenty of his work can be found on archive.org [1]

   "Armchair Universe" [2] is a nice collection of a number of his "Computer Recreations" columns — I think "The Tinkertoy Computer" [3] as well.

   As someone mentioned, his "The Planiverse" [4] was an extension to Abbott's "Flatland".

   [1] https://archive.org/search?query=A.+K.+dewdney

   [2] https://archive.org/details/armchairuniverse0000dewd_x2e7

   [3] https://archive.org/details/tinkertoycomputer00dewd

   [4] https://archive.org/details/planiversecomput0000dewd_y8t2

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3. ydantSep 2023
   Your weird clocks are very cool!

   Seeing the Game of Life display stirred a memory in me of finding this book in the public library at a very influential age and obsessing over it (I checked it out multiple times):

   Armchair Universe: An Exploration of Computer Worlds (A. K. Dewdney, 1987) https://archive.org/details/armchairuniverse0000dewd_x2e7/pa...

   I remember being fascinated by Conway's Game of Life (and implementing it a few times in a few languages) and, of course, also became fascinated by fractals, but never understood them as well.

   I haven't thought about it, but that book was incredibly important to my path through the world of programming.

   Your prices are surprisingly low. I assume you're not trying to make money so much as scratch an itch, but I wonder if you'd sell even more if you charged a more premium price and added a few more details / higher quality pictures.

   Really cool work, dude - thanks for sharing and for the nostalgia trip.

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4. anugrahitFeb 2022
   dewdney is a genious, loved reading "The Armchair Universe", " The New Turing Omnibus" while i was in high school, i still go back to re-read, to see his unique fun way of exposition on CS theory
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5. DanBCSep 2017
   1) have fun doing what you want

   2a) build up a portfolio of programming stuff to show you can program

   2b) that portfolio should also demonstrate polite professional communication skills. People discriminate against age (both too young and too old). They shouldn't, but this portfolio might help.

   3) Get hold of any of these books, and implement the examples in a modern language.

   Computers, Pattern, Chaos, and Beauty by Clifford Pickover (anything in this would be a good ShowHN, especially if you put it on a website with interactive sliders) (it's available as a download somewhere)

   Any of the A K Dewdney books eg The Armchair Universe or The Magic Machine.

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6. SourPatchJun 2017
   Great recommendation! His book The Armchair Universe is pretty much what made me want to be a programmer. I enjoy books that keep the fun in programming.
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