firmly in an accurately translatable and rotatable fixture, remaining stationary while holes are drilled by a drill or boring tool held in a chuck rotating about the principal axis of the machine. Such a device can produce clusters of accurately located holes with parallel axes.
The third important shop component is the milling machine. The workpiece is clamped firmly to an accurately controlled table. The workpiece moves continuously, slowly, during operations while the rotating milling cutter shaves or saws the surface being worked. The milling machine is usually used to make rectilinear cuts to form accurately related plane surfaces or grooves.
A well-equipped machine shop usually also includes a power hacksaw, a powerful press with forming dies for forming sheet metal and for punching holes with "punch and die" sets, a bending brake, tool grinders, and possibly a surface grinder to be used like a milling machine to produce flat surfaces.
Self-replicating shop and universal machines. Each machine or subsystem of such a shop can be separated into parts from which it can be reassembled. Each machine therefore has a "parts list," and each part either can or cannot be fabricated by the set of machines and subsystems comprising the shop. The criterion for replication thus may be stated as follows:
If all parts of all machines and subsystems can be fabricated within the shop, then if properly operated the entire shop can be replicated.
"Proper operation" in this context includes supplying raw materials, energy, and manipulatory instructions or actions necessary to carry out the large number of machine operations, parts storage, and parts assembly required. Human labor is now used for these functions.
It is not necessary that the shop be able to produce anything except a replica of itself which is in turn capable of producing another. Therefore, some simplifications appear possible, such as standardization and limitation of scope where feasible. For example, a universal machine can be imagined with a wider cross feed table than a conventional lathe and with a standardized vise and tool holder so that it can be used for milling. All three dimensions of translation and one axis of rotation could be provided on the table. The head stock could be arranged to hold work-pieces, milling cutters or drills. Hardened tools for the necessary cutting operations could be fabricated by the machine from carbon steel in the annealed condition, then tempered, drawn, and sharpened by a separate simpler machine including a small furnace and a tool grinding wheel equipped with tool-holder and feeds. By careful standardization of parts, tools, and fixtures, it is conceivable that such a "one-machine shop" could succeed in reproducing itself.
"Factons." After a shop had been tested with human operators and proven capable of self-replication, it would be possible to explore the replacement of the human operators by mobile computer-controlled manipulators, or "factons." Hopefully, all of the "numerical control" features could be contained in these general-purpose programmable devices which could handle the machines like a human operator. The factons would transfer work from operation to operation, adjust the machine, perform each operation. then transfer the work to a parts storage array. Finally, the parts would be assembled by the factons and the entire shop set up in a selected location and floor-plan. The facton itself has a parts list, most designed to be manufacturable by the shop. Here it is practically inevitable that the computer chips plus enormous memories will be needed which would fall outside the scope of the shop thus far envisioned. In other words most, but not all, of facton components could be fabricated by them in the shop. Still, given these extra components provided from outside, the factons could probably fully assemble themselves. The shop itself would require some exogenous elements, as noted above. Prime power, shaft power transmission such as belting or electric motors, abrasives, furnace heating arrangements for tool heat treatment, raw material such as basic feedstock including steel rods, strips, and plates are among the most obvious.
Using the same facton design, it should be possible to implement extensions of the shop, including an optical shop, a pneumatic and/or hydraulic equipment manufacturing shop, and ultimately even an integrated circuit shop. Note, however, that only the original shop with its factons and their programs would have to possess the capability for self-replication.
Computer components, probably provided from outside the system, might be furnished in an unprogrammed condition. Thus, factons would program the tapes, discs, or read-only memories by replication (and verification) of their existing programs. This procedure allows for the possibilities of "heritable" changes of program embodying "devolution" (simplification) or "evolution" (capability augmentation) by orderly program amendment.
5A.2 Program Extension Beyond Self-Replication
The "scope" of a self-replicating shop is much larger than
is required for self-replication. Apparently the ability to replicate utilizes
only a vanishingly small fraction of total capabilities (to produce various
sizes and shapes of parts and to assemble them into machines and structures).
The essential characteristic for self-replication is that the scope must
be adequate to produce every part of every machine in the shop by means
of a feasible program. This "closure condition" can be satisfied using
only a small part of the shop's full capabilities.
A generic self-replicating shop can therefore, by means of a simple addition to its program, manufacture other machines and structures and, by means of them, interact
