Information can be exchanged between the CAM area in the bitplane marked by the cursor and the console panel. Reading the bitplane is accomplished by r, whose counterpart is w. Using w replaces the entire patch, but when additional live cells are to be added without removing those already present, the option o (boolean OR) should be used. Boolean AND to the plane & is less useful, nor are there presently boolean operations running in the opposite direction.
Bitplanes can be built up by gradually introducing patterns into the console patch which are then transferred to a bitplane. The numerals 0 and 1 deposit their values at the cursor location, which then advances cyclically to the right; a dot has the same effect as a 1. For purposes of generating a forced evolution, the keys a and b will insert zeroes and ones, respectively, in the second generation panel, at the location of a matching cursor which does not advance.
The console patch can be cleared by the option z, or set (to all 1's) by the option u. To clear all planes in the CAM , use ERASE.
Keyboard arrows, which should be assigned to the corresponding mouse movements, can be used to move any of the cursors; more details are presented in the section on mouse movements.