It is well-known that Abstract State Machines (ASMs) can simulate
"step-by-step" any type of machines (Turing machines, RAMs, etc.). We aim to
overcome two facts: 1) simulation is not identification, 2) the ASMs simulating
machines of some type do not constitute a natural class among all ASMs. We
modify Gurevich's notion of ASM to that of EMA ("Evolving MultiAlgebra") by
replacing the program (which is a syntactic object) by a semantic object: a
functional which has to be very simply definable over the static part of the
ASM. We prove that very natural classes of EMAs correspond via "literal
identifications" to slight extensions of the usual machine models and also to
grammar models. Though we modify these models, we keep their computation
approach: only some contingencies are modified. Thus, EMAs appear as the
mathematical model unifying all kinds of sequential computation paradigms.Comment: 12 pages, Symposium on Theoretical Aspects of Computer Scienc
