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Q: Computers Using Number System Other Than Binary?
Submitted By: Obop, 348 days, 16 hours, 50 minutes ago
I was reading about Howard Aiken's early computer's and how his machines weren't really practical because of his insistence that they use the base 10 number system and that got me wondering whether or not it would be practical to use a number system other than binary when creating a computer. I know that computers use binary because it's easy to represent: in a transistor either there is electricity or there isn't, and in fiber optic cable either there is light or there is not light. Would it be feasible to instead use a base 3 number system? For instance the three states of a transistor could be there is no electricity, there is a lower voltage of electricity, and there is a higher voltage of electricity. I realize that it would probably be impractical to switch to a base 3 number system now but if we could would there be any benefits? Beyond that would it be possible to create a reliable computer that used a number system greater than base 3? This is all purely theoretical, I'm very interested in learning your opinions.
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