moultanoCreator of ns_shiva.Join Date: 2002-12-14Member: 10806Members, NS1 Playtester, Contributor, Constellation, NS2 Playtester, Squad Five Blue, Reinforced - Shadow, WC 2013 - Gold, NS2 Community Developer, Pistachionauts
<!--QuoteBegin--Hawkeye+Jan 21 2004, 03:36 PM--></span><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td><b>QUOTE</b> (Hawkeye @ Jan 21 2004, 03:36 PM)</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'><!--QuoteEBegin--> Has anyone actually explored the possibility of recreating a computer from scratch using more than binary counting system?
When the early computers were made, they could only differentiate between two states.. on or off. That was the basis of binary. So what if you redesigned the computer with using more than one state in mind. It would do wonders for memory access considering how much information can be passed in wires with more than 2 states allowed. We can differentiate between several states now. Why don't we try it?
Immediate advantages that I can think of.. <ul> <li>bus bottleneck dramatically reduced <li>much better page swapping efficiency <li>a generally better way to transmit data <li>much greater instruction set load <li>huge computations made every clock cycle with ALU </ul>
Disadvantages<ul> <li>much worse hardware complexity </ul> Anybody have anything to add to either list? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd--> With a ternary system, you can do addition in constant parallel time, which is one plus.
Downsides: Doesn't translate well into binary logic. (What is AND(true,maybe))? Difficulty of designing reliable hardware. With less wiggle room between neighboring states the difficulty of distinguishing them increases. I don't know enough electrical engineering to really weigh in with an opinion on this, but I suspect that it is also a lot more difficult to design a cell with 3+ stable states, rather than 2.
Comments
When the early computers were made, they could only differentiate between two states.. on or off. That was the basis of binary. So what if you redesigned the computer with using more than one state in mind. It would do wonders for memory access considering how much information can be passed in wires with more than 2 states allowed. We can differentiate between several states now. Why don't we try it?
Immediate advantages that I can think of.. <ul>
<li>bus bottleneck dramatically reduced
<li>much better page swapping efficiency
<li>a generally better way to transmit data
<li>much greater instruction set load
<li>huge computations made every clock cycle with ALU
</ul>
Disadvantages<ul>
<li>much worse hardware complexity
</ul>
Anybody have anything to add to either list? <!--QuoteEnd--> </td></tr></table><span class='postcolor'> <!--QuoteEEnd-->
With a ternary system, you can do addition in constant parallel time, which is one plus.
Downsides:
Doesn't translate well into binary logic. (What is AND(true,maybe))?
Difficulty of designing reliable hardware. With less wiggle room between neighboring states the difficulty of distinguishing them increases. I don't know enough electrical engineering to really weigh in with an opinion on this, but I suspect that it is also a lot more difficult to design a cell with 3+ stable states, rather than 2.