Current research into specialized processors for text information retrieval
Lee A. Hollaar, David C. Roberts · Very Large Data Bases · 1978
While there have been a number of projects involved with the design and construction of specialized processors to aid in the efficient operation of large structured database systems, such as RAP or CASSM, very little work has been done on comparable hardware for text information retrieval. This paper summarizes development efforts being carried out to produce backend systems for the efficient searching and retrieval of full text databases. The characteristics of text retrieval, and its special problems when compared to other database systems, are presented. Two representative applications are discussed, one the retrieval of relevant items from a database being updated online from messages originating from a large number of sources, and the second a legal reference system consisting of all court decisions. Processors to scan large amounts of data at speeds comparable to the transfer rate of the disks on which it is stored are presented, along with a network of simple processors to allow rapid merging of directory information for inverted file systems.