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Absolutely. There is no guarantee that we will even be using binary logic in 30 years. For example, this could be the norm, or something we haven't even invented yet.

The only thing that seems certain is that computers will evolve in ways that we can't predict.

Another poster provided trinary computing tutorial. On one of the pages for the introduction, the author writes:

The basis for understanding Trinary Algebra begins with the way that it represents its numbers. They are used to represent two things: Whole and Fractional Numbers. To start with...in Trinary systems, bits are really called trits. Its short for Trinary Digits.

As if we didn't lack sufficient sexual jokes regarding current computer technology. Now we have to introduce "trits" into the fray. Now we're going to have to explaing to our mothers that they're using 32 trit computers. Or stop people from laughing when we mention we like lots of trits.

I propose we quickly abandon this system in favor of quarternery logic. The possibilities for abuse of a trinary logic system (and its trits) are simply too many.

Another poster provided trinary computing tutorial. On one of the pages for the introduction, the author writes:

The basis for understanding Trinary Algebra begins with the way that it represents its numbers. They are used to represent two things: Whole and Fractional Numbers. To start with...in Trinary systems, bits are really called trits. Its short for Trinary Digits.

As if we didn't lack sufficient sexual jokes regarding current computer technology. Now we have to introduce "trits" into the fray. Now we're going to have to explaing to our mothers that they're using 32 trit computers. Or stop people from laughing when we mention we like lots of trits.

I propose we quickly abandon this system in favor of quarternery logic. The possibilities for abuse of a trinary logic system (and its trits) are simply too many.

One of the best parts of Ternary (Trinary, base 3) is that you can use BALANCED Ternary, in which the digits are not 0, 1, and 2, but are -1, 0, and 1. This allows you to represent any integer without a sign bit. Letting N represent -1 digit you can represent -17 in balanced ternary as 101N (1*(3^0),0*(3^1),1*(3^2),N*(3^3)).

You can check out http://www.trinary.cc/Tutorial/Tutorial.htm for many examples of ternary circuits using ternary logic gates.

It's everbody's worst dreams come true - trinary.

The last time ternary logic came up, I was disappointed to see no proposed schematics. Now there are schematics, but I'm still disappointed. One thing is that they designed with bipolar transistors rather than CMOS -- you cannot put more than a few thousand bipolar transistors on one chip without serious heatsinking... Beyond that, these designs lack quite a lot in speed, power consumption, and reliability as compared to even the 7400-series of TTL bipolar logic chips of the late 60's. And the first one I looked at doesn't even work.

Their ternary inverter is simply a two-transistor inverting _analog_ amplifier running on +/-3V supplies. If the input is -, Q2 turns on, bringing the base of Q1 low, turning Q1 off, so R2 pulls the output (which isn't explicitly shown) to the + rail. If the input is +, Q2 is off, and apparently this circuit depends on leakage to then bias Q1 on. This brings the output almost to the - rail. So it would work as a binary inverter. It's not nearly as good as a
TI 7404 (see page 2). The major difference is that R2 was replaced by a transistor, which turns on for high. This speeds up the low-to-high transition, since you get the full output current of the transistor until the output node is charged up. It also saves power, because one
output transistor is always off and the other always on, so when not switching only leakage currents flow at the output. (This two transistor output is called a "totem pole", and CMOS similarly depends on transistor pairs, one always off so little current flows.) Two more intermediate transistors are added, to control the top transistor on the totem pole and to reduce the resistor count. (On-chip, resistors are not cheaper than transistors.) But if you used it as a binary circuit, trinary.cc's inverter is basically the stripped-down ancestor of the 7404 circuit.
As a trinary circuit, it also has to take a 0V input and output 0V. This inverter does not do this reliably. It probably could be made to work by adjusting the resistor values until 0.0V in gave 0.0V out, but warm or cool the transistors a few degrees, and the amplifier bias will shift so that the output swings to the + or - rail. When you are trying to put the mid-level through it, you are running it like an analog amplifier, and analog amplifiers are unstable without negative feedback.

Nor would adding a few transistors and a negative feedback loop to stabilize it make it work well enough. A trinary inverter should take an input that is not right at any logic level, decide which level is closest, and output the corresponding nomimal voltage. For highs and lows (2 and 0), it does that, since it pins the output to the opposite rail. But even if you can be sure that 0.0V in = 0.0V out, with a circuit that is basically an analog amp, -0.1V in will give more than +0.1V out. So a chain of gates would allow the logic levels to get worse at each gate, until the mid-level became misinterpreted as + or -. To restore the mid-level would take a much more complicated circuit. I lay no claims to being a good designer at the transistor level, but I can't see any possibilities that are not nearly twice as complex as the corresponding binary circuits.

But on a ternary system, what happens, when you write code that expects base 2?

• AND(x,y) == MIN(x,y)
• OR(x,y) == MAX(x,y)

This works for base-2 just as well, as you see the operations are exactly the same.

The whois record for trinary.cc says the registration date was 2000-04-14. Did Steve Grubb maintain the content elsewhere, and then move it over to the trinary.cc domain upon registration?

I'm talking about Steve Grubb of Trinary.cc. His website has everything you wanted to know about trinary logic.

Interesting to note there are six unary gates: invert, rotate up/down, shift up/down. I independently verified every one of the 27 unary functions can be created using those six.

More interesting is the binary operators. Min analogous to OR, Max to AND, XMax to XOR. There's even a Mean and Magnitude to average and compare values of two trits, respectively. It's not all theory, though.

• Half and Full adders
• Multiplexers and Demultiplexers - interesting to note, I designed a four-relay 1-trit demux independently from trinary.cc.
• Flip-flops: Level/Edge triggered
• Async and Sync counters
• Shift Registers: Serial <-> Parallel
• Magnitude Comparator
• Classical and Checksum Parity
• Trinary <-> Binary
• Analog <-> Digital

Yet, chip manufacturers won't budge. Until trinary is more well-researched, I don't expect them too either. As Steve Grubb said,

Where's the Chips !?!

I'm talking about Steve Grubb of Trinary.cc. His website has everything you wanted to know about trinary logic.

Interesting to note there are six unary gates: invert, rotate up/down, shift up/down. I independently verified every one of the 27 unary functions can be created using those six.

More interesting is the binary operators. Min analogous to OR, Max to AND, XMax to XOR. There's even a Mean and Magnitude to average and compare values of two trits, respectively. It's not all theory, though.

• Half and Full adders
• Multiplexers and Demultiplexers - interesting to note, I designed a four-relay 1-trit demux independently from trinary.cc.
• Flip-flops: Level/Edge triggered
• Async and Sync counters
• Shift Registers: Serial <-> Parallel
• Magnitude Comparator
• Classical and Checksum Parity
• Trinary <-> Binary
• Analog <-> Digital

Yet, chip manufacturers won't budge. Until trinary is more well-researched, I don't expect them too either. As Steve Grubb said,

Where's the Chips !?!

I'm talking about Steve Grubb of Trinary.cc. His website has everything you wanted to know about trinary logic.

Interesting to note there are six unary gates: invert, rotate up/down, shift up/down. I independently verified every one of the 27 unary functions can be created using those six.

More interesting is the binary operators. Min analogous to OR, Max to AND, XMax to XOR. There's even a Mean and Magnitude to average and compare values of two trits, respectively. It's not all theory, though.

• Half and Full adders
• Multiplexers and Demultiplexers - interesting to note, I designed a four-relay 1-trit demux independently from trinary.cc.
• Flip-flops: Level/Edge triggered
• Async and Sync counters
• Shift Registers: Serial <-> Parallel
• Magnitude Comparator
• Classical and Checksum Parity
• Trinary <-> Binary
• Analog <-> Digital

Yet, chip manufacturers won't budge. Until trinary is more well-researched, I don't expect them too either. As Steve Grubb said,

Where's the Chips !?!

I'm talking about Steve Grubb of Trinary.cc. His website has everything you wanted to know about trinary logic.

Interesting to note there are six unary gates: invert, rotate up/down, shift up/down. I independently verified every one of the 27 unary functions can be created using those six.

More interesting is the binary operators. Min analogous to OR, Max to AND, XMax to XOR. There's even a Mean and Magnitude to average and compare values of two trits, respectively. It's not all theory, though.

• Half and Full adders
• Multiplexers and Demultiplexers - interesting to note, I designed a four-relay 1-trit demux independently from trinary.cc.
• Flip-flops: Level/Edge triggered
• Async and Sync counters
• Shift Registers: Serial <-> Parallel
• Magnitude Comparator
• Classical and Checksum Parity
• Trinary <-> Binary
• Analog <-> Digital

Yet, chip manufacturers won't budge. Until trinary is more well-researched, I don't expect them too either. As Steve Grubb said,

Where's the Chips !?!

I'm talking about Steve Grubb of Trinary.cc. His website has everything you wanted to know about trinary logic.

Interesting to note there are six unary gates: invert, rotate up/down, shift up/down. I independently verified every one of the 27 unary functions can be created using those six.

More interesting is the binary operators. Min analogous to OR, Max to AND, XMax to XOR. There's even a Mean and Magnitude to average and compare values of two trits, respectively. It's not all theory, though.

• Half and Full adders
• Multiplexers and Demultiplexers - interesting to note, I designed a four-relay 1-trit demux independently from trinary.cc.
• Flip-flops: Level/Edge triggered
• Async and Sync counters
• Shift Registers: Serial <-> Parallel
• Magnitude Comparator
• Classical and Checksum Parity
• Trinary <-> Binary
• Analog <-> Digital

Yet, chip manufacturers won't budge. Until trinary is more well-researched, I don't expect them too either. As Steve Grubb said,

Where's the Chips !?!

I'm talking about Steve Grubb of Trinary.cc. His website has everything you wanted to know about trinary logic.

Interesting to note there are six unary gates: invert, rotate up/down, shift up/down. I independently verified every one of the 27 unary functions can be created using those six.

More interesting is the binary operators. Min analogous to OR, Max to AND, XMax to XOR. There's even a Mean and Magnitude to average and compare values of two trits, respectively. It's not all theory, though.

• Half and Full adders
• Multiplexers and Demultiplexers - interesting to note, I designed a four-relay 1-trit demux independently from trinary.cc.
• Flip-flops: Level/Edge triggered
• Async and Sync counters
• Shift Registers: Serial <-> Parallel
• Magnitude Comparator
• Classical and Checksum Parity
• Trinary <-> Binary
• Analog <-> Digital

Yet, chip manufacturers won't budge. Until trinary is more well-researched, I don't expect them too either. As Steve Grubb said,

Where's the Chips !?!

I'm talking about Steve Grubb of Trinary.cc. His website has everything you wanted to know about trinary logic.

Interesting to note there are six unary gates: invert, rotate up/down, shift up/down. I independently verified every one of the 27 unary functions can be created using those six.

More interesting is the binary operators. Min analogous to OR, Max to AND, XMax to XOR. There's even a Mean and Magnitude to average and compare values of two trits, respectively. It's not all theory, though.

• Half and Full adders
• Multiplexers and Demultiplexers - interesting to note, I designed a four-relay 1-trit demux independently from trinary.cc.
• Flip-flops: Level/Edge triggered
• Async and Sync counters
• Shift Registers: Serial <-> Parallel
• Magnitude Comparator
• Classical and Checksum Parity
• Trinary <-> Binary
• Analog <-> Digital

Yet, chip manufacturers won't budge. Until trinary is more well-researched, I don't expect them too either. As Steve Grubb said,

Where's the Chips !?!

I'm talking about Steve Grubb of Trinary.cc. His website has everything you wanted to know about trinary logic.

Interesting to note there are six unary gates: invert, rotate up/down, shift up/down. I independently verified every one of the 27 unary functions can be created using those six.

More interesting is the binary operators. Min analogous to OR, Max to AND, XMax to XOR. There's even a Mean and Magnitude to average and compare values of two trits, respectively. It's not all theory, though.

• Half and Full adders
• Multiplexers and Demultiplexers - interesting to note, I designed a four-relay 1-trit demux independently from trinary.cc.
• Flip-flops: Level/Edge triggered
• Async and Sync counters
• Shift Registers: Serial <-> Parallel
• Magnitude Comparator
• Classical and Checksum Parity
• Trinary <-> Binary
• Analog <-> Digital

Yet, chip manufacturers won't budge. Until trinary is more well-researched, I don't expect them too either. As Steve Grubb said,

Where's the Chips !?!

I'm talking about Steve Grubb of Trinary.cc. His website has everything you wanted to know about trinary logic.

Interesting to note there are six unary gates: invert, rotate up/down, shift up/down. I independently verified every one of the 27 unary functions can be created using those six.

More interesting is the binary operators. Min analogous to OR, Max to AND, XMax to XOR. There's even a Mean and Magnitude to average and compare values of two trits, respectively. It's not all theory, though.

• Half and Full adders
• Multiplexers and Demultiplexers - interesting to note, I designed a four-relay 1-trit demux independently from trinary.cc.
• Flip-flops: Level/Edge triggered
• Async and Sync counters
• Shift Registers: Serial <-> Parallel
• Magnitude Comparator
• Classical and Checksum Parity
• Trinary <-> Binary
• Analog <-> Digital

Yet, chip manufacturers won't budge. Until trinary is more well-researched, I don't expect them too either. As Steve Grubb said,

Where's the Chips !?!

I'm talking about Steve Grubb of Trinary.cc. His website has everything you wanted to know about trinary logic.

Interesting to note there are six unary gates: invert, rotate up/down, shift up/down. I independently verified every one of the 27 unary functions can be created using those six.

More interesting is the binary operators. Min analogous to OR, Max to AND, XMax to XOR. There's even a Mean and Magnitude to average and compare values of two trits, respectively. It's not all theory, though.

• Half and Full adders
• Multiplexers and Demultiplexers - interesting to note, I designed a four-relay 1-trit demux independently from trinary.cc.
• Flip-flops: Level/Edge triggered
• Async and Sync counters
• Shift Registers: Serial <-> Parallel
• Magnitude Comparator
• Classical and Checksum Parity
• Trinary <-> Binary
• Analog <-> Digital

Yet, chip manufacturers won't budge. Until trinary is more well-researched, I don't expect them too either. As Steve Grubb said,

Where's the Chips !?!

I'm talking about Steve Grubb of Trinary.cc. His website has everything you wanted to know about trinary logic.

Interesting to note there are six unary gates: invert, rotate up/down, shift up/down. I independently verified every one of the 27 unary functions can be created using those six.

More interesting is the binary operators. Min analogous to OR, Max to AND, XMax to XOR. There's even a Mean and Magnitude to average and compare values of two trits, respectively. It's not all theory, though.

• Half and Full adders
• Multiplexers and Demultiplexers - interesting to note, I designed a four-relay 1-trit demux independently from trinary.cc.
• Flip-flops: Level/Edge triggered
• Async and Sync counters
• Shift Registers: Serial <-> Parallel
• Magnitude Comparator
• Classical and Checksum Parity
• Trinary <-> Binary
• Analog <-> Digital

Yet, chip manufacturers won't budge. Until trinary is more well-researched, I don't expect them too either. As Steve Grubb said,

Where's the Chips !?!

I'm talking about Steve Grubb of Trinary.cc. His website has everything you wanted to know about trinary logic.

Interesting to note there are six unary gates: invert, rotate up/down, shift up/down. I independently verified every one of the 27 unary functions can be created using those six.

More interesting is the binary operators. Min analogous to OR, Max to AND, XMax to XOR. There's even a Mean and Magnitude to average and compare values of two trits, respectively. It's not all theory, though.

• Half and Full adders
• Multiplexers and Demultiplexers - interesting to note, I designed a four-relay 1-trit demux independently from trinary.cc.
• Flip-flops: Level/Edge triggered
• Async and Sync counters
• Shift Registers: Serial <-> Parallel
• Magnitude Comparator
• Classical and Checksum Parity
• Trinary <-> Binary
• Analog <-> Digital

Yet, chip manufacturers won't budge. Until trinary is more well-researched, I don't expect them too either. As Steve Grubb said,

Where's the Chips !?!

I'm talking about Steve Grubb of Trinary.cc. His website has everything you wanted to know about trinary logic.

Interesting to note there are six unary gates: invert, rotate up/down, shift up/down. I independently verified every one of the 27 unary functions can be created using those six.

More interesting is the binary operators. Min analogous to OR, Max to AND, XMax to XOR. There's even a Mean and Magnitude to average and compare values of two trits, respectively. It's not all theory, though.

• Half and Full adders
• Multiplexers and Demultiplexers - interesting to note, I designed a four-relay 1-trit demux independently from trinary.cc.
• Flip-flops: Level/Edge triggered
• Async and Sync counters
• Shift Registers: Serial <-> Parallel
• Magnitude Comparator
• Classical and Checksum Parity
• Trinary <-> Binary
• Analog <-> Digital

Yet, chip manufacturers won't budge. Until trinary is more well-researched, I don't expect them too either. As Steve Grubb said,

Where's the Chips !?!

Looks like my question was too far out there to get moderated up. Perhaps it's a lame question. I believe it's a solid question, so I'll pose it again, maybe some of you have comments:

A trinary computer system is based on architecture which is much more efficient than binary, especially for moving large numbers around. Since you are designing your own processors, have you considered the possibility of building (and coding on) a trinary system? It seems like trinary eclipses the revolutionariness of even colorForth, by taking us into a whole nuther dimension of architecture...

-WP

A trinary hardware system moves data more efficiently than a binary one. Here is a site I recently found with all the hardware schematics you need to build such a system. Is this going to happen any time soon? What material would you use to build a trinary system? The same as binary?