Turing Complete

In computability theory, a system of data-manipulation rules (such as a computer's instruction set, a programming language, or a cellular automaton) is said to be Turing complete or computationally universal if it can be used to simulate any single-taped Turing machine. The concept is named after Alan Turing. A classic example is lambda calculus. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness

cf Turing

Strange things that are Turing Complete:

• lots of stuff http://beza1e1.tuxen.de/articles/accidentally_turing_complete.html
• Magic The Gathering card-game (see Role Playing Game) http://www.toothycat.net/~hologram/Turing/
• MineCraft http://gaming.stackexchange.com/questions/20219/is-minecraft-turing-complete
• Cellular Automata rule-110 - New Kind Of Science
  • and Conway's Game Of Life
• DwarfFortress http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1223:_Dwarf_Fortress