  The decidability of determining equivalence of deterministic multitape
automata (or transducers) was a longstanding open problem until it was resolved
by Harju and Karhum\"{a}ki in the early 1990s. Their proof of decidability
yields a co_NP upper bound, but apparently not much more is known about the
complexity of the problem. In this paper we give an alternative proof of
decidability, which follows the basic strategy of Harju and Karhumaki but
replaces their use of group theory with results on matrix algebras. From our
proof we obtain a simple randomised algorithm for deciding language equivalence
of deterministic multitape automata and, more generally, multiplicity
equivalence of nondeterministic multitape automata. The algorithm involves only
matrix exponentiation and runs in polynomial time for each fixed number of
tapes. If the two input automata are inequivalent then the algorithm outputs a
word on which they differ.
