A Comparison of Hardware and Software Associative Memories in the Context of Computer Graphics The Associative Processing of Line Drawings (APLD) System utilizes a hardware associative memory and creates, modifies, deletes, stores, and retrieves two-dimensional line drawings consisting of poin ts, lines, rectangles, and triangles. The APLD functions were duplicated on the TX-2 computer at M.'s Lincoln Laboratory under the LEAP Language and Data Structure, A comparison of the hardware approach with the software simulation illustrates the advantages of the hardware associative memory in three areas: (1) processing speed, (2) storage requirements, and (3) flexibility. The major problem areas of hardware associative memory technology, namely input/output and cost effectiveness, are also addressed. CACM May, 1977 Stillman, N. J. Berra, P. B. associative memory, associative processor, content-addressable memory, graphics, information retrieval, data structures, software evaluation, hardware evaluation, parallel processing, database management 3.71 3.72 3.73 3.74 4.34 4.6 6.22 8.2 CA770505 JB December 29, 1977 2:07 AM 2719 4 2967 2967 4 2967 2151 5 2967 2967 5 2967 2967 5 2967 2967 5 2967