The evolution of a whole stack of planes could be obtained by first loading three consecutive planes from supplementary storage, such as from arrays in the computer's own memory, or files stored on disk. From then on, a composite cycle of evolution would record the evolved plane 0 in plane 1, simultaneously shifting planes 0 to 2 and 3 to 0. Once done, plane 1 would be saved as the new generation, whilst loading plane 3 from the next layer of the old generation, completing the cycle at last.
Backup storage could maintain the two generations as separate, but unless that were necessary for purposes of comparison or something similar; really it is only necessary to save just one single plane to be sure of closing the cycle at the end.
For the moment, allocating a single file of ramdisk memory to each 256x256 plane produces an 8K byte image for each of them. Considerations of the Intel 8086 CPU family, the MS/DOS operating system, and a C language compiler enforce a practical limit of 12 planes. The result is a very ``thin'' automaton, nevertheless fat enough to obtain useful information; experience will doubtless lead to the necessary programming for more versatile combinations.
Even so, extremely thin automata are interesting as limiting cases, so variants have been programmed whereby automata of 1, 2, 3, or 4 planes can be retained internally and followed at the same rate of normal evolution as any other automaton.
Otherwise evolution requires about ten seconds per plane, with a very flickering performance. This is because evolution occurs in a flash, data movement taking much longer, under a blank screen. Including a programmed delay in the cycle will hold the image longer, at the price of a still further slowdown.
For many automata and for many purposes this style conveys a feeling for the structure and texture of the automaton; some leeway is also provided by the choice of a color map. Evolution can be suspended at the end of each sweep through the planes, allowing static views, or visual planewise inspection. There is a clear opportunity to experiment with alternative visual presentations.