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I was actually mucking with ChatGPT about possible "post-binary" architectures. I ended up feeling that ternary is just icky, because the "middle value" doesn'

I was actually mucking with ChatGPT about possible "post-binary" architectures. I ended up feeling that ternary is just icky, because the "middle value" doesn't have an "opposite" Maybe we should do what quaternions did to complex numbers and just jump from 2 to 4: Quaternary CPUs I couldn't understand half of the words it spat out but it turns out that using pairs of "quits" as the atomic computation unit to represent complex numbers and/or 2x2 matrices could be ideal for AI etc.

anagnost 3mo ago
I have the opposite feeling: balanced ternary naturally removes the ickiness of twos-complement arithmetic and the unbalanced MIN_INT.
entrope 3mo ago
Base 4 isn't substantially different from base 2 except in granularity. There's a somewhat famous result that base e gives the best expected density for representing numbers, but fractional (and especially irrational) bases are inconvenient for real-world quantities. So ternary is theoretically the best integer choice, but binary has practical advantages for electronic logic.
reaperducer 3mo ago
I was actually mucking with ChatGPT about possible "post-binary" architectures. Ternary computers were around almost 70 years ago, and first posited well over 100 years ago. Maybe ChatGPT isn't the best place to do research.
- Razengan 3mo ago
  Maybe your anti-AI knee-jerk training isn't the best model for writing HN comments. Did I say I wasn't aware of ternary you dumdum? Even if you want to be anal, ternary is still "post-binary" even if it came out 300 years ago.
- pezezin 3mo ago
  For those who are not aware, Soviet scientists actually developed ternary computers back in the '50s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun Ternary encodings are also popular for data transmission, for example both USB4 and GDDR7 use PAM-3 encoding.
- Razengan 3mo ago
  > Maybe ChatGPT isn't the best place to do research. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49010345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49010345 There's nothing more cringe than a dumb person being judgmental

anagnost 3mo ago

I have the opposite feeling: balanced ternary naturally removes the ickiness of twos-complement arithmetic and the unbalanced MIN_INT.

entrope 3mo ago

Base 4 isn't substantially different from base 2 except in granularity. There's a somewhat famous result that base e gives the best expected density for representing numbers, but fractional (and especially irrational) bases are inconvenient for real-world quantities. So ternary is theoretically the best integer choice, but binary has practical advantages for electronic logic.

reaperducer 3mo ago

I was actually mucking with ChatGPT about possible "post-binary" architectures. Ternary computers were around almost 70 years ago, and first posited well over 100 years ago. Maybe ChatGPT isn't the best place to do research.

Razengan 3mo ago
Maybe your anti-AI knee-jerk training isn't the best model for writing HN comments. Did I say I wasn't aware of ternary you dumdum? Even if you want to be anal, ternary is still "post-binary" even if it came out 300 years ago.
pezezin 3mo ago
For those who are not aware, Soviet scientists actually developed ternary computers back in the '50s: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Setun Ternary encodings are also popular for data transmission, for example both USB4 and GDDR7 use PAM-3 encoding.
Razengan 3mo ago
> Maybe ChatGPT isn't the best place to do research. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49010345 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49010345 There's nothing more cringe than a dumb person being judgmental