I realise (/think?) that CPUs essentially treat two different voltages as a 1 or 0, but what stops us from using 3 or more different voltages? Wouldn’t that exponentially increase the CPU’s throughput by allowing for decisions with greater than two outcomes to be calculated in one cycle? This would presumably mean that a LOT of stuff written for base 2 would need to be updated to base 3 (in this example), but I can’t imagine that’s the only reason we haven’t done this.
I feel like I’ve explained that poorly, but hopefully you get the gist.
In: 12
Because binary information is the most basic and fundamental form of information. Something exists, or not, without any in-between state.
If you think about it, distinguishing between something and nothing is fairly easy without further information. More nuanced ranges of values require calibration an some sort of way to know what each voltage means. This is quite error-prone and difficult to generalize to all sorts of information processing problems. In short, it is easier and cheaper to add bits to the bitstream if you require more information, rather than use another base entirely.
It is also very flexible to move the information around different systems, as it is easy to build a system that can distinguish between something and nothing, rather than dealing with values that are more vague.
An interesting case of non-binary electronic ‘computers’ are analogue synthesizers. These work with voltage ranges to define notes. They are not perfectly accurate, but as a musical instrument they don’t need to be. One of the reasons why they still have a fan base is how they are a bit fiddly and unpredictable, which makes them fun to experiment with.
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