Xref: utzoo sci.math:7145 comp.misc:6435 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!skipper!shafer From: shafer@drynix.dfrf.nasa.gov Newsgroups: sci.math,comp.misc Subject: Re: Base 3 computers? (was: Divide by three?) Message-ID: Date: 28 Jun 89 22:09:55 GMT References: <6710021@hpcupt1.HP.COM> <6250@sunray.UUCP> <626@hrc63.co.uk> Sender: news@skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov Organization: NASA Dryden, Edwards, Cal. Lines: 27 In-reply-to: pj@hrc63.co.uk's message of 26 Jun 89 15:19:23 GMT In article <626@hrc63.co.uk> pj@hrc63.co.uk (Mr P Johnson "Baddow") writes: >Nearest I ever heard of to this was in Heinlein's "The Number of the Beast", >where there was a computer which used trinary. In a throw-away line, one >character deduced that it must use three phase power. When I was at UCLA, majoring in CS, one of my professors told me that the Russians had tried to build a trinary computer. The reason being that Shannon proved that e (2.7...) was the most efficient base for information content and 3 was closer to e than 2 was. Rather than using off-on, they used off-middle-high and for core memory, rather than just magnetized-nonmagnetized, they used clockwise, counter-clockwise, and nonmagnetized. He said that the theory was fine, but the implementation just killed them. It's easy to sense off or on, but a lot harder to sense off, medium, high. He claimed it set them back 10-15 years. I remember seeing this discussed somewhere else (IEEE, ACM?). -- M F Shafer |Ignore the reply-to address NASA Ames-Dryden Flight Research Facility |Use shafer@elxsi.dfrf.nasa.gov NASA management doesn't know what I'm doing and I don't know what they're doing, and everybody's happy this way.