Von Neumann on the empirical roots of mathematics
See also: Von Neumann’s critique of automata theory and logic in computer science
Specifying digital systems using sequential functions
These papers introduce sequential functions for specifying digital systems like operating systems and networks. The mathematical basis comes from Moore machines, Moore machine products, and primitive recursive functions on finite sequences. Primitive recursive functions on sequences were described by Rózsa
Specifications like temporal logic but with ordinary mathematics
To specify the design of operating systems and other “systems level” software, it’s possible to use temporal-logic style qualifiers like “always” or “eventually” or more detailed similar qualifiers in just ordinary algebra and state machines. https://www.yodaiken.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/temporal.pdf
Rabin-Scott Finite Automata and Their Decision Problems
One of the most important Computer Science papers introduced finite state machine language recognizers, the equivalence between non-deterministic and deterministic finite automata (in terms of what languages they recognize) , the Myhill congruences, etc.
Al Gore, the Internet, and the Media
Al Gore really did have a pivotal role in the development of the Internet and the incessant and ignorant jeering from the media on this issue did no favors to the American public. From https://web.eecs.umich.edu/~fessler Here is the definitive statement
RTLinux retrospective
Kuth’s Merge Sort in C
Taken from Knuth Algorithm S mergesort P162-163 Vol 3 Second edition 1998 The major change is that the scratch buffer is not required to be adjacent and there are some changes because C array indexing usually starts with 0. This
don’t defer
There is a proposal to add “defer” to C. Its biggest example is taken from code that was originally designed to not manage storage at all, but to run once and exit – delegating all the cleanup to exit. The
State machines for large scale computer software and systems
Sequential functions can be used to define and compose large scale state machines that represent computer software and hardware. The mathematical basis is introduced and there are motivating examples, including a proof of the safety of the Paxos algorithm. https://www.yodaiken.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/12/fac_sm_published_acm.pdf