For the Marvel UK comic book team, see Genetix (comics)

Genetix (comics)

The Genetix are fictional characters, a team of superheroes appearing in comic books published by the Marvel UK imprint of Marvel Comics. The team was created by Andy Lanning, Graham Marks and Phil Gascoine.-Publication history:...

Genetix is a virtual machine created by Bernard Hodson containing only 34 executable instructions. It was inspired by the principles of Alan Turing

Alan Turing

Alan Mathison Turing, OBE, FRS , was an English mathematician, logician, cryptanalyst, and computer scientist. He was highly influential in the development of computer science, providing a formalisation of the concepts of "algorithm" and "computation" with the Turing machine, which played a...

 and allows for an entire operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

, including a word processor

Word processor

A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of printable material....

 and utilities, to run on 32 kilobytes.

"Genes" are sequences of 50 to 100 pointers that either point directly to one of the 34 basic instructions or to another gene. The 700 genes take up approximately 26 kilobytes in size all together. The "gene pool" consists of a closed section and an open section where the users can add their own made genes.