Disclosed is a method and multiprocessor apparatus to convert an alphanumeric input into input to an application program as a text processing or word processing program. This is accomplished in a computer having relative motion and/or relative position sensing input capability and a content addressable memory including a comparand register, tag fields, data fields, and a match circuit. The method continuously determines when the relative motion and/or relative position sensing input is active. When the input is active the system senses a basic attribute motion and/or position of the active relative motion and/or relative position sensing input and defines a meta attribute of the sensed input. Exemplary meta attributes include the turns, weighted input center, and stroke geometry and topology. The meta-attribute is continuously updated and formed into an updated multi-bit input object attribute word of the sensed basic attributes and defined meta attributes of the sensed input for storage in the comparand register. This multi-bit word stored in the comparand register is compared to the recognition pattern tag field entries in the content addressable memory, and matches an output from the content addressable memory. This output is the contents of the content addressable memory data field having a recognition pattern tag field entry most closely corresponding to the multi-bit input object attribute word. Also disclosed is a multi-processor system for carrying out the method of the invention.
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