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Re: Is binary a "language"?

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"spinoza1111" <spinoza1111@yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:29fc0345-1b7b-4e11-bcfe-bde8adebae93@v33g2000prn.googlegroups.com...
> On Apr 12, 11:00 pm, "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <p...@informatimago.com>
> wrote:
>> "osmium" <r124c4u...@comcast.net> writes:
>> > "Pascal J. Bourguignon" wrote:
>>
>> >> Decimal computers used electronic tubes with ten states.
>>
>> > Can you provide a reference to such a computer that ever got out of
>> > someone's basement?  My guess is that you can not.
>>
>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ENIAC
>>
>> Perhaps you could learn some computing history.
>> After all it's less than a hundred years of history, even a lazy bumb
>> could have some notions.
>
> "ENIAC used ten-position ring counters to store digits; each digit
> used 36 vacuum tubes, 10 of which were the dual triodes making up the
> flip-flops of the ring counter. Arithmetic was performed by "counting"
> ..."

> But ... weren't the tubes themselves bistable? Isn't this why they are
> called "flip flops"? Without being an electronics whiz it looks to me
> as if the ENIAC, just like the 1401, was an over-elaborate simulation
> of decimal based on binary devices.

They might have used binary in the same way that an abacus uses binary: each 
'ring' is either on the left or right; 3 rings on the right is '3'. So 3 
flip-flops on might similarly represent '3'. Otherwise only 4 flip-flops 
would be needed.

I doubt any 'decimal electronic computer' actually stored a decimal digit 
using an analogue quantity.

-- 
Bartc 

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Re: Is binary a "language"? spinoza1111 <spinoza1111@yahoo.com> - 2011-04-12 05:57 -0700
  Re: Is binary a "language"? "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> - 2011-04-12 16:33 +0200
    Re: Is binary a "language"? "osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2011-04-12 09:46 -0500
      Re: Is binary a "language"? "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> - 2011-04-12 17:00 +0200
        Re: Is binary a "language"? "osmium" <r124c4u102@comcast.net> - 2011-04-12 10:11 -0500
        Re: Is binary a "language"? spinoza1111 <spinoza1111@yahoo.com> - 2011-04-15 06:07 -0700
          Re: Is binary a "language"? "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2011-04-15 14:40 +0100
            Re: Is binary a "language"? spinoza1111 <spinoza1111@yahoo.com> - 2011-04-16 06:58 -0700
          Re: Is binary a "language"? "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> - 2011-04-15 19:23 +0200
            Re: Is binary a "language"? spinoza1111 <spinoza1111@yahoo.com> - 2011-04-16 07:19 -0700
              Re: Is binary a "language"? "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> - 2011-04-17 02:30 +0200
        Re: Is binary a "language"? Thad Smith <ThadSmith@acm.org> - 2011-04-24 15:37 -0700
      Re: Is binary a "language"? spinoza1111 <spinoza1111@yahoo.com> - 2011-04-15 06:01 -0700
    Re: Is binary a "language"? spinoza1111 <spinoza1111@yahoo.com> - 2011-04-15 05:40 -0700
      Re: Is binary a "language"? "Pascal J. Bourguignon" <pjb@informatimago.com> - 2011-04-15 19:12 +0200
        Re: Is binary a "language"? spinoza1111 <spinoza1111@yahoo.com> - 2011-04-16 07:15 -0700

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