What a ternary machine taught me about binary
After a year on Aum.Simulator, I keep catching myself translating assumptions back into bits. A trit isn't a bit plus one more state — it changes the arithmetic of the whole system.
Published April 14, 2026
article ternarysystemsrust 2026-04The premise
Balanced ternary has three states per trit: −, 0, +. This sounds like a mild variation on binary until you carry the implication through arithmetic.
What breaks
Sign gets free. Rounding becomes natural. Comparisons collapse into a subtraction.
What doesn’t
Moving between worlds — serialising a balanced-ternary value into an octet stream — is where the friction lives. The hardware is elegant; the interop is boring work.