The idea of links also appears in the Rochester Connectionist Simulator [Rochester 1988]. A link data structure represents a connection from one processing unit to another unit in a network. Associated with a unit can be input links: links associated with the connections coming to the units, and output links: those links that transfer the unit output to other units. Therefore in some network paradigms two units are connected by two links, representing the same connection and associated with the same weight.
Figure 3.3: The link data structure.
Links are stored in a single linked list attached to the unit. It contains a unique identification number, which can be used for referencing a specific link. Control information specifies the type of link, i.e. input-link or output-link, and the pointer to the unit to specify to which unit the connection points to. The weight pointer (see next section) points to the structure holding the connection strength. Again data space is reserved for the user to add his own information to the linkstructure and finally a pointer is found to the next link in the list.