Chapter 5: Finite State Computing
Peter M. Kogge · Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics eBooks · 2022
The term state shows up frequently in everyday discussions on computing, especially when we are trying to understand or explain the process by which some computing device came up with a result. This chapter discusses “state” in more detail and overviews the properties of the simplest type of computing that lay at the heart of our conventional computing paradigm—namely computing where we can “remember” one of only a finite, and usually small, number of distinct things, and where this memory lasts only until we try to process some new piece of data. Such systems go by the name finite automata (FA), where the term automaton (with plural form automata) refers to “a machine that performs a function according to a predetermined set of coded instructions, especially one capable of a range of programmed responses to different circumstances.”36