Why is normal computers binary?
In: 0
binary is a relatively simple coding, you can measure a voltage at one level, say 0V and say that’s 0, and another vintage, for example 5V and say that’s 1.
you can have a lot of slop in that and have a range of voltages that are acceptable for either value. so 0 can be anything from -0.5v to 0.5v. a 1 can be 4v to 6v, etc. if you read 3v on a line, you know it hasn’t stabilised yet and you need to wait or raise an error.
there’s no advantage in computing power in using multiple values and binary is easily encoded in many other media. paper tape, magnetic tape/disks, switches, compact disks, etc. all easily encoded binary and many would struggle to encode more values, and there’s no real benefit to doing so.
some modern internal communications protocols do use multiple voltage values on the same line, they might use 4 distinct voltage levels to send 2 bits of data in one pulse, or 16 values to send 4 bits, and so on. but this relies on more complex decoding at each end and is more susceptible to things like interference, where a small blip can momentarily make the pulse being sent get the wrong value and corrupt all the bits in that pulse.
also sending more bits per pulse requires exponentially more levels each time, so you end up with diminishing returns.
so in the end, a trinary computer would not be able to do anything that a binary computer couldn’t, would be significantly more complex to build and the data it uses would be more limited or expensive in its storage. it’s not impossible, but it’s just not the simplest possible, and therefore it’s more expensive and complex for no overall benefit.
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