Following up on a paper of Balamohan et al. [‘On the behavior of a variant of Hofstadter’s $q$-sequence’, J. Integer Seq. 10 (2007)], we analyze a variant of Hofstadter’s $Q$-sequence and show that its frequency sequence is 2-automatic. An automaton computing the sequence is explicitly given.

Two linear numeration systems, with characteristic polynomial equal to the minimal polynomial of two Pisot numbers β and γ respectively, such that β and γ are multiplicatively dependent, are considered. It is shown that the conversion between one system and the other one is computable by a finite automaton. We also define a sequence of integers which is equal to the number of periodic points of a sofic dynamical system associated with some Parry number.