3 ms·
Knuth talks about this jokingly in TAOCP not expecting someone would actually do it. I looked at the screenshots and it's not obvious to me how they map back o
by jart 6y ago
Knuth talks about this jokingly in TAOCP not expecting someone would actually do it.
I looked at the screenshots and it's not obvious to me how they map back on to ternary. Like how do you have a hex editor when 16/3=5.333?
- grenoire 6y agoI think, based on this screenshot, it uses some form of nonary encoding: http://tunguska.sourceforge.net/shots/tunguskashot.png http://tunguska.sourceforge.net/shots/tunguskashot.png
- rowanG077 6y agoThe only reason we use hex is because we have binary. With ternary you would maybe use 12 as a base. That's better then 16 anyway since 12 can be divided by 2, 3, 4 and 6.
- klyrs 6y agoHex is 4 bits wide. Base 81 might be a good analog, 4 trits wide, if a bit unwieldy.
- woadwarrior01 6y agoPractical computers based on ternary architectures[1] have been built in the past. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun
- jart 6y agoYes, it mentions that computer in the footnotes of the Russian translation of TAOCP.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]