Trinary Code

[K]

Not as silly as quadrary(?) or quinary(?)!

No, quantum computing is a pretty serious area of research.  But what the original poster was suggesting was a step backwards.  There's a reason computers use digital signals instead of analog.

[idoL]

What if the extra information besides a 1 and 0 was used to carry a wider rage of frequencys?

[Adron]

What if the extra information besides a 1 and 0 was used to carry a wider rage of frequencys?

A wider range of frequencies? What does frequency have to do with 1's and 0's? If anything, you'd have to lower your modulation speed to be able to accurately detect the other states beside 1 and 0...

[MyndFyre]

What if the extra information besides a 1 and 0 was used to carry a wider rage of frequencys?

A wider range of frequencies? What does frequency have to do with 1's and 0's? If anything, you'd have to lower your modulation speed to be able to accurately detect the other states beside 1 and 0...

...which is exactly the reason that we advocate binary.

In addition, by widening the modulation speed, you require more bandwidth, which could be better used by adding another parallel data bus.

[R.a.B.B.i.T]

What if the extra information besides a 1 and 0 was used to carry a wider rage of frequencys?

A wider range of frequencies? What does frequency have to do with 1's and 0's? If anything, you'd have to lower your modulation speed to be able to accurately detect the other states beside 1 and 0...

...which is exactly the reason that we advocate binary.

In addition, by widening the modulation speed, you require more bandwidth, which could be better used by adding another parallel data bus.

Which would be a 100% increase in data transfer capability, as opposed to the 50% bonus trinary provides.

[idoL]

Edit nevermind, I know little on this subject.

[raylu]

50%?

8 binary bits = 256 possibilities
8 trinay bits = 6561 possibilities
2562.890625% times more efficient.

[Topaz]

Requiring over three times the equipment and storage.

[Adron]

50%?

8 binary bits = 256 possibilities
8 trinay bits = 6561 possibilities
2562.890625% times more efficient.

According to your thinking, if I have a 20.000000000 GB hard drive and someone else has a 20.000000001 GB hard drive, his hard drive will be 27487.7906944% times more efficient than mine. Does that make sense? No....

[raylu]

No...

If you had a 1MB hard drive in binary, and I had a 1MB hard drive in trinary, then mine would be that much more efficient.

[Adron]

No...

If you had a 1MB hard drive in binary, and I had a 1MB hard drive in trinary, then mine would be that much more efficient.

How much more efficient exactly?

[Ban]

Apparently 27487.7906944% so.

[Arta]

That's like saying a pound fo lead is heavier than a pound of feathers.

[Ban]

Hmm, you raise a good point. 1MB is indeed 1MB, no matter how it works.

[Adron]

Yes, but even if his was actually bigger in binary bits, I'm having trouble with his measure of "more efficient". If how good something is is measured in the number of possible combinations, a single trinary bit is 50% more efficient than a single binary bit, a trinary byte is 2563% more efficient than a binary, and a trinary word would be even many times more more efficient than a binary. Just like a 1 byte larger hard drive is 256 times more efficient since you can store 256 times as many combinations....