Gray code and Kohonen maps

A Gray code is a binary encoding of numbers where neighboring numbers differ by only one bit.  I actually independently invented this in the summer of ... must have been 1995, I guess, reasoning backwards from life events.  I implemented it in Visual Basic as an experimental memory based on Kohonen maps, then lost the code.  Every now and then I try to reconstruct it, but get lost in the Gray code concept - and today I learned it has a name!

Ah, the Internet.  Life is so much better with it.

I really need to reconstruct that research thread.  It was a good one.  The idea was to use a Kohonen map as the index for a semantic space, with semantic units encoded as vectors of keys into the map.  Thus each key self-organizes into a self-describing semantic unit that can be expanded into its components in an organic way in working memory.  Or something.  I really need to reconstruct that.