[ih] How Plato Influenced the Internet

[Jack Haverty]

Back in the 60s, a lot of computer technology was not yet cast in 
concrete.  There were lots of choices.  But then someone pursues one 
choice, and if it works reasonably well, others follow the same path.   
It doesn't take very long for the "installed base" to become so large 
that it's unlikely that some other initial choice could easily take 
over.    Think about how long it's taken, so far, for IPV6 to supplant IPV4.

Sometime around 1968, as a learning experience in some lab course at 
MIT, I decided to make some non-binary logic.   At the time, analog 
computers were still around, and digital computers hadn't yet agreed 
even on how many bits were in a byte, or how to encode characters, or 
what order bits should be in a computer memory word.   But bits were 
pretty well established.

I figured there must be other choices.   So I made some ternary logic.   
Unlike binary, which dealt with 1s and 0s, I used +1, 0, and -1 as the 
three possible states.  Electronically it translated into positive, 
negative, or no current.   Using transistors and such components, I made 
some basic logic "gates" that operated using three states instead of 
two.  Was that a good idea?   Probably not, but it was a good way to 
learn about circuits.    Instead of bits (binary digits), how about 
manipulating trits (trinary digits)? There's nothing magic about 1s and 0s.

Shortly thereafter, binary took over as circuitry went into integrated 
circuits and a whole industry came in to being around binary 
computers.   If some other kind of approach, ternary, quaternary, or 
whatever is better than binary, we'll probably never know.   I suspect 
something might happen soon with qubits though to challenge bits supremacy..

There are lots of ways to do things, and the one that "wins" might not 
have been the best choice.

Imagine how networking and computing might have evolved with trits 
instead of bits....

/Jack


On 8/23/21 12:15 PM, John Day via Internet-history wrote:
> Agreed.  There are only so many ways to do something.  ;-)
>
>> On Aug 23, 2021, at 14:46, Craig Partridge <craig at tereschau.net> wrote:
>>
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>> On Mon, Aug 23, 2021 at 8:12 AM John Day via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org <mailto:internet-history at elists.isoc.org>> wrote:
>> It is not uncommon in the history of technology (it has been observed back several centuries) that it isn’t so much direct transfer of technology but more someone brings back a story along the lines of, ‘I saw this thing that did thus and so and kind of looks like t.’ Which gives someone the idea, that if it exists, then how it must work like this.’ It isn’t quite independent invention, but it isn’t quite direct influence either.
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>> Related comment -- from my various interactions with historians about technology history.  If the available technology is limited (as it was in the 1950s/60s/70s and early 1980s in many dimensions) then your solutions to certain problems are going to look rather similar.  That doesn't meant that two similar solutions influenced each other... The trick in writing tech history is figuring out where there was a choice space and where there wasn't (much of) one.
>>
>> Craig
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> *****
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