Design and Characteristics of a Variable-Length
Record Sort Using New Fixed-Length Record Sorting 
Techniques
This paper describes the application of several
new techniques for sorting fixed-length records 
to the problems of variable-length record sorting. 
The techniques have been implemented on a Sylvania 
9400 computer system with 32,000 fixed-length words
of memory.  Specifically, the techniques sequence 
variable-length records of unrestricted size, produce
long initial strings of data, merge strings of 
data at the power of T-1, where T is the number of work
tapes in a system, and do not restrict the volume 
of input data.
CACM May,1963
Goetz, M. A.
