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https://dev.to/buntine/the-balanced-ternary-machines-of-soviet-russia

 

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It's pretty common knowledge that computers store and operate on data using the binary number system. One of the main reasons for this can be found in the circuitry of modern computers, which are made up of billions of easily mass-producible transistors and capacitors that can together represent two states: high voltage (1) and low voltage (0). Such a design is so ubiquitous nowadays that it's hard to imagine that computers could operate in any other way. But, in Soviet Russia during the 1950s, they did. Enter Setun, a balanced ternary computer developed in 1958 by a small team led by Nikolay Brusentsov at the Moscow State University.

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Ternary, or base-3, is a number system in which there are three possible values: 0, 1 and 2. In balanced ternary, these three possibilities are -1, 0 and +1; often simplified to -, 0 and +, respectively.

 

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Therefore, there is no concept of signed or unsigned integers - everything is just an integer. So subtraction is achieved by simply inverting the operand and applying addition (which is implemented similarly to binary machines). This plus-minus consistency is also able to cut down on the number of carries required in multiplication operations.

Another useful trait of balanced ternary (or any balanced numeral system for that matter!) is the fact that one can implement rounding on floating-point numbers by blatant truncation, which allows for a simplified implementation of division.

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In the late 70's, Brusentsov and some of his students developed a programming language for the Setun-70 computer called the Dialog System for Structured Programming (DSSP).... It is a stack-based language (no surprise there) similar to Forth that uses reverse Polish notation. This allows one to write programs in a relatively high-level language yet still feel "close to the metal". So close, in fact, that the authors had the following to say: DSSP was not invented. It was found. That is why DSSP has not versions, but only extensions.

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