Patent US 3,978,326

Apparatus for obtaining a numerical value of a polynomial function of a variable. The method of cascade accumulation is used in which memories M0, M1, M2, . . . , Mn are involved, and under one cycle of manipulation, the content of memory M1 is added to the content of M0, the content of M2 is added to the content of M1, and so on until the content of Mn is added to the content of Mn-1. By loading a digital value determined by the coefficients of the polynomial a.sub.0, a.sub.1, a.sub.2, . . . , a.sub.n in each of the memories as its initial value, and repeating x cycles of the above mentioned manipulations, the digital value of the function EQU w = a.sub.0 + a.sub.1 x + a.sub.2 x.sup.2 + . . . + a.sub.n x.sup.n is obtained in the memory M0. A simplified electrical circuit for performing the above manipulation is disclosed, in one example of which only memories or a shift register and an adder are involved as key elements in the logic circuit to generate a polynomial function, and no complicated programming is needed.