时序逻辑设计原则 (Sequential Logic Design principles):A sequential logic circuit is one whose outputs depend not only on its current inputs, but also on the past sequence of inputs, possibly arbitrarily far back in time. The circuit controlled by the channel-up and channel-down pushbuttons on a TV or VCR is a sequential circuit—the channel selection depends on the past sequence of up/down pushes, at least since when you started viewing 10 hours before, and perhaps as far back as when you first plugged the device into the wall. So it is inconvenient, and often impossible, to describe the behavior of a sequential circuit by means of a table that lists outputs as a function of the input sequence that has been received up until the current time. To know where you’re going next, you need to know where you are now. With the TV channel selector, it is impossible to determine what channel is currently selected by looking only at the preceding sequence of presses on the up and down pushbuttons, whether we look at the preceding 10 presses or the preceding 1,000. More information, the current “state” of the channel selector, is needed. Probably the best definition of “state” that I’ve seen.