Returned electronic memory retrieval.

摘要

In an electronic data processing apparatus blocks of returned memory 3 are linked by address pointers starting with a pointer in a table 1. Each pointer in the table 1 points to memory of within a predetermined size range varying by integral powers of 2. The memory blocks pointed to by each table pointer are sorted in order of size (alternately by frequency of use). Searching for memory of size needed is very efficient as it is limited to memory blocks within a size range. Additionally, returned memory blocks (7) of the same size as a block 3 are not in the sort list, but are pointed to by the block 3 of the same size and are used when that size block is selected.