Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!teknowledge-vaxc!sri-unix!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: non-binary hardware
Message-ID: <389@quintus.UUCP>
Date: 13 Sep 88 07:51:14 GMT
References: <1398@garth.UUCP>
Sender: news@quintus.UUCP
Reply-To: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc.
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> By the way, does anyone know of a non-mechanical digital calculator or
> computer that isn't essentially binary?

Am I the only person reading this group who has heard of dekatron tubes?
These were a 10-stable gadget (I think some sort of gas discharge tube).
If I remember correctly they had one cathode, ten anodes, and some
grids.  The discharge took place between the cathode and one anode, and
an electrical pulse on the grids would shift the discharge to the next
or previous anode.  I know that multi-digit up/down counters were built
with them.  I don't know if anything more complex was done, but it could
have been.  Since the discharge gave off visible light, you could read
of the state of a dekatron counter without a separate display.