TERNAC is an emulation written in FORTRAN of a
ternary computer
A ternary computer, also called trinary computer, is one that uses ternary logic (i.e., base 3) instead of the more common binary system (i.e., base 2) in its calculations. Ternary computers use trits, instead of binary bits.
Types of states ...
on another binary machine, a
Burroughs B1700
The Burroughs B1000 Series was a series of mainframe computers, built by the Burroughs Corporation, and originally introduced in the 1970s with continued software development until 1987. The series consisted of three major generations which were t ...
. It was implemented in 1973 at
State University of New York, Buffalo (SUNY
Buffalo). The implementation provided both fixed-point and floating-point capability; fixed-point words were 24
trits in length and the floating-point words had 42 trits for
mantissa and 6 trits for exponent.
TERNAC was intended primarily to discover if the implementation of a nonbinary structure on a binary computer was feasible, and to ascertain the cost in memory storage and time for such an implementation. As a feasibility test, it was successful, and proved that both speed and price are comparable with that of binary computers.
See also
*
Setun
Setun () was a computer developed in 1958 at Moscow State University. It was built under the leadership of Sergei Sobolev and Nikolay Brusentsov. It was the first modern ternary computer, using the balanced ternary numeral system and three-val ...
(ternary computer constructed in USSR)
References
^ DSSP & Forth : Compare And Analysis*G. Frieder, A. Fong, and C. Y. Chao. A Balanced Ternary Computer. Department of Computer Science, State University of New York at Buffalo, pages 68–88, 1972
Ternary computers: part I: motivation for ternary computers G. Frieder, 1972; Proceeding MICRO 5 Conference
Ternary computers: part 2: emulation of a ternary computerG. Frieder, 1972; Proceeding MICRO 5 Conference
External links
''Pioneers of Soviet Computing''
Mainframe computers
Ternary computers
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