[e2e] OT: a different number base

[Micah Beck]

I heard (long ago) of a magnetic disk storage technology that could store a
trit (base-three digit) using two directions of polarization or none.
Unfortunately, I have no reference but I was told that it was developed by
an Israeli company.

/micah

----- Original Message -----
From: "David P. Reed" <dpreed at reed.com>
To: <alok.dube at apara.com>; <end2end-interest at postel.org>
Sent: Wednesday, April 02, 2003 8:16 AM
Subject: Re: [e2e] OT: a different number base


> Of course there is Babbage, who used precisely machined wheels that worked
> in base 10.  I have a lovely (non electric, hand-cranked) WWII Monroe
> calculator used in hydrodynamic calculations during the war - it is base
> 10, also.
>
> The floating point units of System 360 worked using base 16 digits (at one
> abstraction level).  I suspect this is not what you mean.
>
> I believe the MIX computer in Knuth's books used base 10 logic, but I'm
too
> lazy to check.
>
> Personally, I've always thought that the optimal digital system would be
> use the number base negative 13
>
>
>
> At 12:46 PM 4/2/2003 +0530, Alok Dube wrote:
> >Hi,
> >
> >can anyone pass me links onto digital systems working on different number
> >bases..like lets say hex instead of binary..
> >Im looking for an implementation where we can find systems with number
> >bases like 4, 16 etc.... where each device is charecterised by 4 or 16
> >states etc..
> >
> >are there any working models of the same?
> >
> >or is there any literature one can lookup for the same?
> >
> >
> >-rgds
> >Alok
>
>