A computer program has been written to design character recognition logic based on the processing of data samples. This program consists of two subroutines: (1) to search for logic circuits having certain constraints on hardware design, and (2) to evaluate these logics in terms of their discriminating ability over samples of the character set they are expected to recognize. An executive routine is used to apply these subroutines to select a complete logic with a given performance and complexity. This logic consists of 39 to 96 and gates connected to a shift register and a table look-up or resistance network comparison system.