Alternative to state machines question

[malsch]

I have designed a simple vending machine using Moore state machines which outputs sweets or the money if you insert more than the cost of the sweets.

Now i have to criticize the use of a state machine when used in such a vending machine and have to suggest and alternative implementation which would give more versatility to the system.

I really don't know how to continue from here. Any help would be greatly appreciated

10q

 

[Laplace]

Suppose the price of some of the selections were to change. How would you handle that with a state machine? Was your implementation of the state machine done in hard-wired logic? Could your logic be used with different configurations of vending machine with the specific behavior modified by stored parameters to save money? Can your state machine also be used to drive an LED display showing the money currently inserted? What alternate implementation could do all of these things?

 

[malsch]

yes i was thinking a microproccessor based system. 10x for your help

 

[poor mystic]

...of course a microprocessor is nothing but a giant (tiny?) Mealy state machine anyway, which has so many proliferations of state available to it that we forget it is a state machine and start to think of it as actually being able to "do" things.