Just an idea

[d03boy]

Im not sure if this has been thought about or anything... but what if we could instead of using binary's 0's and 1's to compute, but to use 0's 1's and 2's or something? so instead of having to send a byte that's 1111111111111111111111 ... 2 could be replace and less data would have to be sent. Wouldnt this help speed? I dont know if its possible or if it has already been thought of.. but i just thought it would be an interesting topic to learn something about it.

Post follow-ups

...d03boy

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Alienware [Grey/Custom]
Intel Celeron 900MHz
128MB SDRAM
30GB Seagate HD
56x CD-ROM
8x HP CD-Writer
IntelliMouse [USB]

[bassman]

Hey do3boy,
The 0s and 1s in binary represent a state of off or on.
You could also think of it as o and x (o=off,x=on).Therefore another numaric figure would have no representation.

Hope that helps http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/cool.gif

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A real Christian is one who can give his pet parrot to the town gossip.
Frank's Place (http://dreamwater.net/tech/frankscomp/)

[iisbob]

Binary no#'s are not the only one's you'll see in the PC world, because they are limited to only two values; hence you'll also see octets ( ip addresses ) and hexidecimal address ( commonly memory addresses and also ip addrersses-{in novell} ).

But, in the end it still breaks down to on/off-no matter how many lines of code a program contains, it can be broken down to it's basic element of binary code.




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iisbob

The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful. -- Mark Twain.

[d03boy]

Ya I knew that binary numbers meant on and off, but the actual physical on and off really isn't on and off. On is fully on, but off is actually part-way on. There is still a current but it is recognized as the off state. That is why I was wondering why they can't use more than just one state. If off can actually be half-way on then why can't there be another value that is 1/4 on or something? I'm not 100% on all my info but fairly positive about it.

...d03boy

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Alienware [Grey/Custom]
Intel Celeron 900MHz
128MB SDRAM
30GB Seagate HD
56x CD-ROM
8x HP CD-Writer
IntelliMouse [USB]

[This message has been edited by d03boy (edited 04-07-2002).]

[iisbob]

No, when it says off-it means off, as in no current { signal }.

" 0 " means lack of current or no repsonse-whereas " 1 " means a response, or a current. There is no " half -way ", i think you are confusing the presence of hibernation or sleep mode as being part of the binary code a pc recognizes-they are not the same.


Let's take your standard digital signal for instance; if you have a peak-you have a " 1 " or current is on, if you have no current, or a valley-then there is no signal; it's " off ".

There are no " inbetweens " in the electrical field, you have a current-or you don't. Hence " 1 " means positive, or " on "-and " 0 " means negative signal, or " off ".

As i explained above, because of this simple schema-we use Hexadecimal & Octal no#'s as a way to give a more complex meaning to the binary code.









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iisbob

The man who sets out to carry a cat by its tail learns something that will always be useful and which never will grow dim or doubtful. -- Mark Twain.

[This message has been edited by iisbob (edited 04-07-2002).]

[cq1cts5]

the d03boy's idea is good and there were some academical attempts to create computer natively using three states as i've heard, but not very successful. if you look at science.nasa.gov, you will find pretty crazy physical stuff about ideas of "atomic computers" where one unsplittable expression of information would be atom/electron/quark or whatever the smallest junk is down there and they do not have 2 states, but much much more, differs from element to element, but you have to verify this over there I do not want to make stuff up. i can see this one coming sometime this century anyway ...

as per other discussion - ON does not necessarily mean full current/voltage/sex_drive/whatewer and OFF does not mean none. it's an expression of range, regarding TTL logic 0 is between 0V and 0.8V and logic 1 is 2.4V up to 5V. anything inbetween is "forbidden zone" and different circuits can interpret it differently, that is why is called also "undefined", that does not mean they do not exist.

the d03boy's idea works pretty well in modems, codecs etc. what do you think, why your 56k modem works? texbook's rate for PCM over the phone is 6.8kHz, phone systems I worked with were sapling voice with 8kHz (4kHz bandwidth) but you can still have 56k modem, how is that huh?

d03boy, to your discussion: it's been already invented long time ago and it's called coding.

way to go d03boy

[yawningdog]

What you describe d03boy does in fact exist. It's called step data. It gets its name from how it looks on a oscilloscope. I suspect that you do not and will not see it in the pc industry because it would require that the entire industry re-tool and re-train to accommodate trinary or quadrinary numbering, counting and storing.

I work in an industry where all electronics is essentially proprietary, so some manufacturers have adopted this technology for their own use.

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Linux- Because you wouldn't buy a car with the hood welded shut, why should your O.S. be different?

[saphalline]

I believe SCSI actually uses this for its own bus system, in that 0V means "off" and then there are two other values represented by +5V and -5V. You have to remember, however, that this is just for the bus (the cables) and requires AC current. Most electronics and computerized systems require DC current so that is our fundamental "problem" or roadblock to using a numbering system higher than binary.

From what I've seen, we'd need a completely different medium for transfering in trinary or higher, such as optical computing or something like that. Even quantum computing is viewed as binary in a way, where each "in between" state of the quanti in question is interpreted as a combo of "on" & "off" so as to speed binary computing. I wonder if it would be possible to monitor the spin, speed, and direction (on all 3 axes) of a particle for 3+ states? Hmmm... but speed and position are inversely known...

Perhaps you could go into the information theory field and figure it out for us? I wouldn't mind learning the powers of 3 in return for increased computing capacity and speed. http://www.PCGuide.com/ubb/cool.gif

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Windows 95: A 32-bit extension of a 16-bit overlay for an 8-bit OS that was originally designed for a 4-bit processor by a 2-bit company that can't produce 1 bit of good software!

[iisbob]

- ON does not necessarily mean full current/voltage/sex_drive/whatewer and OFF does not mean none. it's an expression of range, regarding TTL logic 0 is between 0V and 0.8V and logic 1 is 2.4V up to 5V. anything inbetween is "forbidden zone" and different circuits can interpret it differently, that is why is called also "undefined", that does not mean they do not exist.


In real world terms it's understood that there is no actual " dead " state in electrical properties, there is always a " bleedoff " of energy even in a rest state. However, for practical PC usage and for standard binary coding for PC usage no current means " off " or 0, and a current being present { live } means " on " or 1.

There is always the possibility as saphalline mentioned of using the known multi-dimensional states of quatum particles to extrapolate a new code not limited by simply " on " & " off ", but with also a " if-then " type statement, this is very similar to the boolean logic employed by todays' CPUs.

But, for all intents and purposes-" 0 " means off, and " 1 " means on.





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iisbob

Computer-Show me the Enterprise; no bloody A, no bloody B, and no bloody C-just the original...Mr Scott { from a STNG episode }