In SX Microcontrollers, SX/B Compiler and SX-Key Tool, black68cougar wrote:

Acedemics call them FSM - Finite State Machines - (as though we can deal with Infinite State Machines) so us normal people just call them State Machines.

A State Machine has a set of defined states - the machine will, at any one time, be in one of the states. It cannot be in more than one state and it cannot be in a state that has not been defines (well we hope not - if it is then we didn't do things right).

It changes states only under defined conditions. I Traffic light is a very simple state machine. The states are Red, Yellow, and Green. It changes from Red to Green to Yellow and back to Red based on time. It never changes from Red to Yellow, or from Green to Red, or from Yellow to Green.

Lots of others have already spent lots of energy on this topic. Here are a few:

WIKIPEDIA  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finite_state_machine
UML Tutorial: Finite State Machines  http://www.objectmentor.com/resources/articles/umlfsm.pdf
Finite State Machines; Making simple work of complex functions http://www.microconsultants.com/tips/fsm/fsmartcl.htm

Want more? Google "Finite State Machines" and you'll get more than you want.

FSMs are one of the most powerful tools for hardware, software, or system design. IMHO

Doug

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