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From: meredith@puck.sw.mcc.com (LG Meredith)
Newsgroups: comp.theory,sci.logic,sci.math
Subject: FSM's to RM's
Keywords: finite state machines register machines
Message-ID: <3032@puck.sw.mcc.com>
Date: 4 Jun 91 19:22:29 GMT
Organization: MCC Software Technology
Lines: 21


A lot of people have asked me what a register machine is. My naivete
led me to believe that this was common parlance. Sorry, just goes to
show how little i know about what i'm doing. Moving from the apology
to an exposition of register machines, Abelson and Sussman write:

"... we describe processes in terms of the step-by-step operation of a
traditional computer. Such a computer, or _register machine_,
sequentially executes _instructions_ that manipulate the contents of a
fixed set of storage elements called _registers_. A typical
register-machine instruction applies a primitive operation to the
contents of some registers and assigns the results to another."

                                           Structure and
					   Interpretation of Computer
					   Programs

					   Harold Abelson and Gerald
					   J. Sussman with Julie Sussman

Hope this clears up the matter.