My sense of deja vu should be called deja FSM--here's the one I was thinking of, in case it might be useful to you:

http://cs.finescale.com/FSMCS/forums/t/130482.aspx

Good for you for deciding on trying the old-school scratchbuilder's method, I think it's always better to try it yourself, if it's possible to do so, just to see how it goes.