I have a hardware-only Conway "Life Machine", is that interesting?
Given that it bulky in today’s world and not cheap, the attraction will be to those with Rube Goldberg and philosophical time on their hands. But the process of making it might be of great interest to some.  a video is worth 64k words. what’s better?  Call it a Covid 19 simulator then you get a lot of interest. And inject HCQ seeds with Zinc and Vit ABCDK for patterns. Then add colloidal gold patterns with C60 and azythromyacin and virus  and bigger bacteria looking objects. Then design innate immunity objects in the corner to obliterate the CV19. Add humour then the video might go viral. Puny pun intended.
So target the geeky guys and the organic ones with the anti-HCQ hoaxers (big Pharma and insurance law suits on Dr’s.)
Then see if you can reverse engineer a happy face to get the seed or some other symbolic.
Life is simply an application of Ohm’s Law , luck and Heisenberg principle. Yet your challenge to spread an anti-virus combination needs no manager CPU’s just logic and a good formula.
On the 4Mhz watch out for crosstalk and  prevent race errors by phasing clocks, grounding or UTP wires for clock or use your finger on signals  to make it worse with 100pF and then you are closer to the sensitive signal to making faster.
You might be able to make it even faster, using pullup R’s or Vcc+5% or adding 30pF.
Any scope with a very short ground connection is your pal.  Like no clip and tip with spring and two test pins sig + GND on 10:1 probe.  Or use RF cap to earth GND.