sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) (07/01/89)
<6250@sunray.UUCP> <626@hrc63.co.uk> Sender: Reply-To: sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) Followup-To: Distribution: Organization: Corpane Industries, Inc. Keywords: Magic 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. > >Ever since I read that I have been trying to figure out how it could work. Tis very simple: Binary computers have 2 states: 1 (true, yes, on) and 0 (false, no, off) Trinary would add a third state: -1 , the "Maybe" state. This would give computers the power of indecision, just like humans. We could expand this to make a 4 state computer with the oscillating "Sometimes" state. Or we could just go all out and base our computers on the "magic 8 ball", then we would have such states as "Better not tell you now" and so on. -- John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps ||||||||||||||| sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406 Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out of it alive. -- John Sparks | {rutgers|uunet}!ukma!corpane!sparks | D.I.S.K. 24hrs 1200bps ||||||||||||||| sparks@corpane.UUCP | 502/968-5401 thru -5406 Don't take life too seriously. You'll never get out of it alive.
scs@itivax.iti.org (Steve C. Simmons) (07/03/89)
sparks@corpane.UUCP (John Sparks) writes: >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. >Tis very simple: >Binary computers have 2 states: 1 (true, yes, on) and 0 (false, no, off) >Trinary would add a third state: -1 , the "Maybe" state. . . Harrumph. To paraphrase from my (1983?) Datamation article "The Quark, Of Course" (I'm not kidding!): In a trinary logic system, the basic unit of information is the 'trit', corresponding to the 'bit'. As bits are grouped into bytes, so three trits form a 'trite'. Three trites parallel the word, and are called a 'trylobite'. Three trylobites form a 'nynobite'. Finally, an arbitrary null-terminated string of trites is a 'cliche'. -- Steve Simmons scs@vax3.iti.org Industrial Technology Institute Ann Arbor, MI. "Velveeta -- the Spam of Cheeses!" -- Uncle Bonsai
wordy@cup.portal.com (Steven K Roberts) (07/07/89)
And, of course, one of the basic logic elements for trinary logic
is the flip-flap-flop.
-Steve