1. A programmable decoder comprising: at least one programming input for a plurality of programmable reduced-state trellis parameters; and a programmable device connected to the at least one programming input and implementing a reduced-state sequence estimation (RSSE) decoder comprising at least one reduced-state trellis structure based upon the plurality of programmable reduced-state trellis parameters that is comprised of one of at least the number of super-states, the number of full-states, the number of branches per super-state, a reverse super-state trellis table, a decoder super-state survivor as a full-state, a forward full-state table, a full-state to super-state mapping table, decoder super-state path metric and decoder super-state traceback array.