on 1/23/02 10:47 AM, Zachery Bir at zbir_at_urbanape.com wrote:
>
> On Wednesday, January 23, 2002, at 10:34 , Ed Kummel wrote:
>
>> For instance, forget binary computing...how about
>> "trinary?" three states, on, off and maybe...
>
> Uh, 'cause electricity is on or off?
>
> Zachery Bir <zbir_at_urbanape.com>
> <URL:http://www.urbanape.com/>
>
Trinary state devices are available in the market. Try Motorola for a good
line of devices that have been in the market for a number of years.
They are preferred for several reasons.
One, the number of 'switches' needed to set up some device is reduced,
and/or the number of logical alternatives specified by a trinary number is
larger for a given number of 'digits'.
Two, the Motorola devices, and similar devices by other vendors, are
inherently more resistant to noise appearing in data that come in trinary
format instead of binary.
Remember in a serial bit stream, if it is binary coded data, then in any
instant in time the probability that the observed data is wrong is 50%. For
trinary coded data, the probability of an instantaneous error is reduced to
33%.
That may not seem like much, but in an intrinsically highly noisy
application, going from binary to trinary data coding can significantly
improve the noise immunity of the overall system. So, don't dismiss the
idea of trinary coded data without considering that alternative.
Regards,
Richard.
-- Richard Davis Mformation SYStems Companytel: 508-869-6976 fax: 508-869-6008 e-mail: msys1_at_charter.net
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