This may be my lack of knowledge about computer engineering (despite my CS degree;)), but how would we use any representation other than binary? Do we have transistor logic that can do base three, or any other base? Isn't it all based on logic gates, which are inherently binary?
While there are numerous very good reasons for computers to use binary, it is not impossible to build a computer that use, say, base three or any other low base for that matter. On the transistor level there is no such thing as 1 and 0, only voltages, and while an engineer designing a logic circuit will usually define a few volts to mean 1 and no voltage to mean 0, it is quite possible to define 2 * a few volts to be 2 and go ahead and design a base three circuit - take a look at this for more info on base three computing (google's cache of it since the site appears to be down).
I still believe that there are good reasons that contemporary computers use base two - a lot of things become simpler when you don't have to worry about multiple voltage levels, only wether it's "a few volts" or "about zero volts."
And once you've finished reading up on base three computers, there's always more interesting stuff to read on the net.
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Why spend 30 seconds writing a robots.txt when you can simply sue?
This may be my lack of knowledge about computer engineering (despite my CS degree ;)), but how would we use any representation other than binary? Do we have transistor logic that can do base three, or any other base? Isn't it all based on logic gates, which are inherently binary?
While there are numerous very good reasons for computers to use binary, it is not impossible to build a computer that use, say, base three or any other low base for that matter. On the transistor level there is no such thing as 1 and 0, only voltages, and while an engineer designing a logic circuit will usually define a few volts to mean 1 and no voltage to mean 0, it is quite possible to define 2 * a few volts to be 2 and go ahead and design a base three circuit - take a look at this for more info on base three computing (google's cache of it since the site appears to be down).
I still believe that there are good reasons that contemporary computers use base two - a lot of things become simpler when you don't have to worry about multiple voltage levels, only wether it's "a few volts" or "about zero volts."
And once you've finished reading up on base three computers, there's always more interesting stuff to read on the net.
Why should anybody spend money in commercial software when that money could be better spent in paying for the training you will obviously need?
I'll remember to ask my friends and relatives this question the next time one of them asks me to fix a Windows box.