Adding a Tape Makes All the Difference
So let’s take a step back and ask, what is a Turing machine?
A Turing machine is just an extension of a finite state machine. Just like an FSM, a Turing machine has a finite set of states and a state relation that defines how it moves between them based on its input. The difference is that its inputs come on a strip of tape, and the machine can both read and write symbols on that tape, something like this:
Figure 16.
A Turing machine:
A Turing machine is a finite state machine that can read and write a tape.
The basic idea of the Turing machine is simple. Take a finite state machine. Instead of feeding ...
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