command group the instructions in the reverse group behave in a mirror image fashion as described later in the discussion that follows the term symbol represents any logical block of bits for some applications 8 bit bytes can be the preferred implementation in others such as biological processing of genomic strings symbols can be 4 bit entities for string search and insert operations an input data string is fed to the cm 206 one symbol e g character at a time along with a command when the command is a search each symbol is simultaneously compared to all the symbols currently stored in the cm 206 two types of comparisons conditional and unconditional can be performed the first symbol of a string is searched unconditionally while subsequent symbols are searched conditionally on the previous symbol having been found in the cm 206 when the operation is an insert the symbols in the cm 206 on the right hand side of the insertion point are shifted right by one location and the new symbol is stored at the insertion point in one embodiment of the present invention the insertion point is the location of the first symbol with a marker set it is another important object of the present invention that the search and insert operations operate both in one clock cycle only owing to efficiency of the ce 205 system architecture as discussed previously with string delete operations successive symbols are read from the deletion point in the cm 206 and all the symbols on the right side of this point are shifted left by one position here again the deletion point is the location of the first or last storage cell with a set marker the read and shift components of this operation are done simultaneously and take one.