AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY OF THE USES OF TERNARY LOGIC IN DIGITAL COMPUTERS.

Digital computers presently in production are all binary logic machines, in that they are built with elements that have two stable states. Greater efficiency in computer speed and hardware would be obtained if elements with other than two states were used. Attempts are now in progress to find devices that have this property. The next logical step beyond binary would be ternary. A study of ternary algebras is made with emphasis on computer applications. Functional completeness and expansion theorems are introduced to show their usefulness in computer design. An adder circuit using three level logic is described and a measure of effectiveness using cost and complexity as criteria is made. It can be predicated that, as the binary computer approaches its ultimate in speed, more attention will be placed on N-valued logic machines. Author