[Don Patrick]

I was referring to the amount of possible combinations with bits or trits, which includes value 0 as the first value.
Simpler example with 2 units:
Binary system: 00, 01, 10, 11 = 4 values possible with 2 bits.
Trinary system: 00, 01, 02, 10, 11, 12, 20, 21, 22 = 9 values possible with 2 trits.

[Ultron]

Answer me this, Don - which is easier for you to read (translate) as a regular number - the binary, or the trinary?

Everything a trinary or quartary system can represent, so can a binary, thus saying that complicated this system would be pointless.

Also, we saw that there already was a trinary computer but it wasn't much of a success or widely accepted, was it? And I am sure there was a reason for that. Although there is a possibility such a system could be faster (as you pointed out - less digits more combinations) but we would need to think up new rules, operations and re-invent all software platforms.

[Don Patrick]

Neither. I never have to work at bit level to program anything, so I never "read" in binary. However, I've worked with a sixty-nary system (software-technical, not hardware) and it was no more complicated in use than a binary system.

We might also assume that computers should only have one processing core because they've been a widely accepted success for decades. And yet at some point we got quad-cores, which must have been infinitely more complex for the hardware manufacturers.

The reason I object is simply because I recall some professor say, years ago, that a trinary computer would be faster and more capable. This was on a documentary where they pointed out that once conductors hit 1 atom thickness, the doubling of computer speed would come to an end, because you can't get smaller than that. Trinary computers and quantum computers were two of further possible improvements mentioned. Other than that, this whole topic is a bit too trivial for my interests as a software programmer.

[8pla.net]

Thank you for discussing this, Don.  Your contribution is useful for this topic of balanced ternary representation, which I happen to like a lot.  I imagine trybbles inspired the Star Trek episode "The Trouble with Tribbles". 

So let's enjoy a little trouble with trybbles, trytes and trits... Art said, "I thought Binary was based on two states a 1 or 0 whereas a Ternary or Trinary system was based on three possible states, -1, 0, 1."  Then Don mentioned, "Trinary system: 00, 01, 02, 10, 11, 12, 20, 21, 22 = 9 values possible with 2 trits."

Look at that... We have two separate symbol tables: -1, 0, 1. And: 0, 1, 2 used in trinary.  In ternary computer design, there is a symbol table for balanced ternary which uses: -, 0, + .

For example, "02" is useful from Don's comment, as two trits. That becomes +- on a ternary computer.  So we simply have one positive three and one negative one, which equals two. So to convert +- to two... We do +1 * 3^1, plus -1 * 3^0. Simplified, that's 3 - 1 = 2

Partial quote, "so the value 2, for example, is represented as +-, that is, +1 in the 3's place and –1 in the 1's place." as a cross reference from: http://homepage.cs.uiowa.edu/~jones/ternary/numbers.shtml

To stay on the topic of Artificial Intelligence... 
There have been claims that the human brain works in ternary.
 

[Art]

I think some people's brains work only in Analog!