Ternac
Encyclopedia
TERNAC is a ternary computer that was implemented in 1973 at SUNY, Buffalo.
In TERNAC both fixed-point and floating-point capability were provided. The fixed-point words were 24 trits in length and the floating-point words had 42 trits for mantissa and 6 trits for exponent.
The TERNAC computer implementation was intended primarily to discover if the implementation of a nonbinary structure on a binary computer is feasible, and to discover the cost in memory storage and time for such an implementation. As a feasibility test, this effort was successful, and the first version of this implementation has proved that both the speed and price are on the order of the speed and price of binary computers.
In TERNAC both fixed-point and floating-point capability were provided. The fixed-point words were 24 trits in length and the floating-point words had 42 trits for mantissa and 6 trits for exponent.
The TERNAC computer implementation was intended primarily to discover if the implementation of a nonbinary structure on a binary computer is feasible, and to discover the cost in memory storage and time for such an implementation. As a feasibility test, this effort was successful, and the first version of this implementation has proved that both the speed and price are on the order of the speed and price of binary computers.