[ge96]

Is "state machines" a global term that includes finite state machines like how vending machines deal with varying coin amounts that go in to trigger the price and dispense proper change?

Googled looks like it is. That was a cool homework/project.

[activatedgeek]

Yes, the vending machines examples is one of the most directly relatable ones. In fact, pretty much every piece of code you write has gone through a "Finite State Automata" (during the lexical phase of compilation to be exact) which in very simple terms is just a huge set of rules saying - "if this then that".

[ge96]

finite state automata haha