The CAPP executes a stream of instructions that address memory based on the content (stored values) of the memory cells. As a parallel processor, it acts on all of the cells containing that content at once. The content of all matching cells can be changed simultaneously.
One of the early Air Traffic Control computers ran such an architecture in 1972
"STARAN might be the first commercially available computer designed around an associative memory. The STARAN computer was designed and built by Goodyear Aerospace Corporation."
Memory executing operations is an explored space, although one that came to a dead end pretty quickly, but that's no reason to dismiss it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Content_Addressable_Parallel_P...
The CAPP executes a stream of instructions that address memory based on the content (stored values) of the memory cells. As a parallel processor, it acts on all of the cells containing that content at once. The content of all matching cells can be changed simultaneously.
One of the early Air Traffic Control computers ran such an architecture in 1972
"STARAN might be the first commercially available computer designed around an associative memory. The STARAN computer was designed and built by Goodyear Aerospace Corporation."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STARAN
A paper about it
http://www.cs.kent.edu/~parallel/papers/p405-batcher.pdf
There's also an interesting book, which I have read, on the subject :
Content Addressable Parallel Processors
Author: Caxton C. Foster
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. New York, NY, USA ©1976
ISBN:0442224338