A textbook (unfortunately long out of print) that seems quite suitable in both content and level to your need is: Ehrig, Kiermeier, Kreowski and K\:uhnel Universal Theory of Automata Teubner, 1974, 240pp. Also, in response Juergen's remark that "classical automata theory" is a rather horrible mess, one most distinguished categorist evidently agreed with him and responded by writing two ~400 page books on the subject: Samuel Eilenberg Automata, Languages and Machines Academic Press, 1974 and 1976. They make no explicit use of categorical notions nor language, but considering the author and date the categorical spirit surely prevails. Note also his book with Elgot on Recursiveness. Best, Keith
From: Steve Stevenson <steve@cs.clemson.edu> To: categories@mta.ca Subject: categories: Automata as Categories Date: Tue, 20 May 2003 11:15:23 -0400 (EDT)
I am interested to find an article or book that is a category- theoretic redevelopment of "classical" automata. I'd like to find something that graduate students could use if they had already had an automata course and now would retrace that same development using category-theoretic vocabulary and means.