Manipulates a buffer of size 9 containing 1 blank and 8 atoms.

Each atom is earth (=1) or water (=0); using the blank to track which position of the buffer is the front, we can store a number from 0 to 255.

On cycle 1375 you can see the buffer which holds the initial value of:

_ 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 0 = 74

The machine repeatedly increments the buffer, wrapping around eventually. It takes 9 tape loops, or 2081 cycles, for the contents of the buffer to be incremented. On cycle 3456 you can see the buffer has:

_ 0 1 0 0 1 0 1 1 = 75

An output is produced when the buffer reaches:

_ 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 0

at which point the buffer is reset to a value of:

_ 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

Therefore it takes 2^8 - 2^5 increments, or 9 * (2^8 - 2^5) = 2016 tape loops, to produce the next output.