Associative memories and processors

Data Prozessing of today already makes use of quite a number of associative-like operations. However the high cost of parallel-associative memories has so far limited the application of related hardware mechanisms. Instead one uses rather lengthy soft-routines in order to simulate associative performance. Better results can be obtained by a hardware-supported procedure which bases the association on addresses. Thus it is possible to utilise a given processor memory either partly or fully in an associative mode and to determine any number of independently associative segments with dynamically adjustable capacity. The procedure includes possibilities for fast sorting and classification. In addition to a description of the technical concept a series of possible applications are described. © 1975 De Gruyter Oldenbourg. All rights reserved.