Calculating one-dimensional binary cellular automata using a Commodore 64

Were the homecomputers of the mid 80ies good for doing any practical work? For example, would they have been useful in doing research on complex systems? I think, the answer is yes! As a proof of concept, I have quickly implemented a short program in Commodore Basic V2.0 that lets you explore the behavior of binary cellulary automata specified by Wolfram's code. Wolfram's work dates also back to the 1980ies, but has recently gained much attention due to his book A new kind of science.

100 DIM K(8)
110 INPUT"ENTER RULE NUMBER";R
120 N=1
130 FOR I=1 TO 8
140 IF R AND N THEN K(I)=1
150 N=N*2
160 NEXT
170 INPUT"USE RANDOM LINE AS SEED";A$:RN=0:IF A$="Y" THEN RN=1
300 PRINT CHR$(147)
310 IF RN=0 THEN POKE 1043,160:GOTO 340
320 FOR I=1024 TO 2023:IF RND(0)<0.5 THEN POKE I,160
330 NEXT
340 FOR L=1024 TO 1944 STEP 40
350 A=0:IF PEEK(L+39)=160 THEN A=4
360 B=0:IF PEEK(L)=160 THEN B=2
370 FOR P=0 TO 39
380 C=0:IF PEEK(L+1+P)=160 THEN C=1
385 IF P=39 THEN C=0:IF PEEK(L)=160 THEN C=1
390 IF K(A+B+C+1) THEN POKE L+P+40,160
400 A=B*2:B=C*2
410 NEXT
420 NEXT

The program displays the results of a simulation block code on the 1000 character 64 screen. Below is the result of simulating rule 30.