Andrew Bromage <bromage@goaway.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:
+---------------
| Joe Marshall <jrm@content-integrity.com> writes:
| >I haven't been fortunate enough to find a language implementation that
| >was more powerful than a sufficiently large finite-state machine.
| 
| Technical nit: Your hypothetical finite-state machine in question would
| need to have different start states depending on the program input...
+---------------

Not necessarily so. The FSM in question is usually called
"the CPU's instruction set", including the "cold boot" sequence.  ;-}  ;-}

What you're calling "the program input" could be viewed as just
more input data...


-Rob

-----
Rob Warnock, 31-2-510		rpw3@sgi.com
SGI Network Engineering		http://reality.sgi.com/rpw3/
1600 Amphitheatre Pkwy.		Phone: 650-933-1673
Mountain View, CA  94043	PP-ASEL-IA