ASSOCIATIVE PROCESSORS: A PANACEA OR A SPECIFIC?

THe associative array processor is well suited to some problems which to date have not been satisfactorily solved. It is not a general-purpose computer, but has a niche of its own. It is well suited to applications such as photo interpretation, signature analysis, speech or hand-writing analysis, or text processing for noisy texts. It is ill suited for highly numeric tasks such as weather forecasting and signal processing. Serial processors can do very well in still other areas such as air traffic control and dictionary look-up. However, as the precision of an AAP's slice is increased, its numeric capability becomes ever more cost-effective. If both AAPs and serial processors were being produced in quantity, the AAP could search disordered tables more cost-effectively than the serial processor, because its 1-bit arithmetic logic unit is faster and simpler. This table searching would also be efficient in cases where the entire table must be checked, regardless of how quickly a first match is found, as where many keys are involved. However, in most table searching the AAP is not significantly better than a serial processor.