this is my last entry on this topic i've had my say perhaps the dialog has been useful to someone i suggest that you add your references i think the older ones are wonderful i e huffman mealy moore i looked for shannon's stuff but have been unsuccessful so far in finding anything except references back to the 's i am still curious i suggest you consider the quotations minsky kozen cannon that i presented above i may work on the state article to bring some of the various definitions out into the open the next time i get to the library i will explore your references you may see a bit of movement of bibliographic references stuff around as i explore more wvbailey