non-binary hardware
Mark Brader
msb at sq.uucp
Wed Sep 14 08:26:09 AEST 1988
[1] The word is "ternary", not "trinary". If you want to use the "tri-"
prefix, you have to say "triadic". Of course, as with all things in
language, this is subject to change if "trinary" becomes sufficiently
popular; the words for bases 8 and 16 both changed when they became popular
with computers. (See Knuth, volume 2, sec 4.1; in 1st edition, p. 168.)
But "ternary" is the accepted form.
[2] Please move this discussion out of comp.lang.c. Discussion of non-
binary machines should probably go in comp.arch (I'm cross-posting to
there and directing followups to it). If discussion of terminology
occurs, it should probably go to sci.lang. Sci.math is another possible
group for some aspects.
[3] While I'm posting, I may as well point out that the ENIAC calculator
(or computer, depending on your definition; it was plugboard-programmed)
of 1945 used decimal, non-BCD arithmetic, but the underlying implement-
ation was binary; each of the 10 digits in each of its 20 registers
contained 10 flip-flops each containing 2 vacuum tubes!
Mark Brader "You can't [compare] computer memory and recall
SoftQuad Inc., Toronto with human memory and recall. It's comparing
utzoo!sq!msb, msb at sq.com apples and bicycles." -- Ed Knowles
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