Balanced Ternary: lesson 2: computing basics

Overview:

Balanced Ternary also has an interesting computation side.  If you read the main balanced ternary page on this blog, you might remember it referencing SBTCVM. You might even be the proactive sort that has already downloaded it and BalTcalc.

Sure, SBTCVM isn't a supercomputer, and may not be all the way done, but it does work. and it has a nice menu. (if you haven't found it yet its MK2-MENU.py)

The first thing one may notice about SBTCVM when they first run the intro program is that it has a TTY, 2 raster displays, a beeper, and the execution address starts at the negative end. You might also notice that both raster displays start at 50% grey. this is no accident. as with both 6-trit RGB and 2-trit greyscale, the ground state is always 50% grey.

for a simple example lets look at 1-trit greyscale.

+ = 100% (white)
0 = 50%  (grey)
- = 0%   (black)

Interesting huh?

Some Terminology:

• Tryte (T): 6 trits. 
• kilotrit (kt): 1000 trits
• KiloTryte (KT): 1000 Trytes.
• megatrit (mt): 1000 kilotrits
• MegaTryte (MT): 1000 KiloTrytes
• TASM: The file extension used by SBTCVM's assembler.
• TROM: the file extension used by SBTCVM for its executable "ROMS" note that the "ROMS" are mirrored in executable "memory"
• SBTCVM assembly: the assembly language used in the SBTCVM project to   write low level SBTCVM TROM code.

Q&A:

Q1: But how does a balanced ternary VM even run on a binary computer? 
A1: Well the answer in SBTCVM's case is high-level, logic virtualization.

Q2: Have there been real electronic balanced ternary computers?
A2: yes.  Most notably the Setun. 

Q3: will balanced ternary ever become commonplace?
A3: Could happen.  Though most likely it will start with hobbyists who are passionate about balanced ternary.

Q4: how high can a balanced ternary computer count?
A4: well that depends on its word length:
(bare in mind that you can count backwards to the negative equivalents too!)

6 trits : 364
7 trits : 1,093
8 trits : 3,280 (compare that to 255)
9 trits : 9,841
12 trits: 265,720
24 trits: 141,214,768,240
36 trits: 75,047,317,648,499,560
48 trits: 39,883,221,538,436,254,931,680