The whole operation of a digital computer is based on its
manipulation of sets
of binary numbers ...
There were several
early computers that were designed to do decimal arithmetic. You could
conceivably write a program for them to do binary arithmetic, but they did not
have the native capability to do it.
Decimal artihmetic is implemented on
many computers that are largely binary in nature. For example, IBM mainframes
have always been able to perform decimal arithmetic, and now Decimal
Floating-Point is available. Decimal arithmetic is very useful for real-world
computing. There is no precise way to express the result of dividing 1 by ten
in binary, just as there is no precise way of expressing the result of dividing
1 by three in decimal.
There has also been some work done with ternary logic
and ternary computers. The Setun, for example was implemented using ternary
logic.
Don't get hung up on binary.
Tom Marchant
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