Some familiar examples are numerical integration, matrix operations, and payroll computation.
NOVA would use rotating memory instead of high-cost random access memory, reduce the number of program steps, and reduce the number of memory accesses to program steps. Rotating memories were used in early computers because of low cost, reliability, and ease of fabrication. These machines have been replaced by machines with more costly random access memories primarily to increase computing speed as the result of a decrease in access time to both operands and instructions. With a conventional computer this is done with a program that adds the first a to the first b, the second a to the second b, etc., and counts the operations. In general, the four or more instructions must be brought from the memory to the instruction register once for each pair in the lists.