Xref: utzoo sci.math:6961 comp.misc:6282 Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ncar!ico!ism780c!news From: news@ism780c.isc.com (News system) Newsgroups: sci.math,comp.misc Subject: Re: Base 3 computers? (was: Divide by three?) Message-ID: <28301@ism780c.isc.com> Date: 7 Jun 89 23:53:13 GMT References: <6710021@hpcupt1.HP.COM> <6250@sunray.UUCP> Reply-To: marv@ism780.UUCP (Marvin Rubenstein) Organization: Interactive Systems Corp., Santa Monica CA Lines: 15 In article <6250@sunray.UUCP> alanm@cognos.UUCP (Alan Myrvold) writes: >I recall hearing about a USSR computer that did base 3 arithmetic, and even >had a Fortran compiler. Does anyone have details or a reference ??? > In the mid to late 50's I heard a lecture by Willis Ware, who had returned from a tour of the USSR's computer facilities. He did say that they had built a base three computer. But since they could not build tri-stable devices, they simulated them with a pair of flip flops. At the time of the lecture I am sure there was no FORTRAN compiler, because the only i/o devices were numeric. So there was no way to do FORTRAN. Also magnetic tape technology was so poor that a tape could be read only on the same unit that wrote it. Marv Rubinstein