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I was wondering what kind of practical applications do you see a ternary computer being used for? As in if the IT industry actually started building ternary computers, what would people do with them? Would they be servers or desktops? if they are a server then what kind of role would it play in a network?

I've been looking into mainframes, and wondering if by using a ternary based system if these types of servers could become practical again.

Ternary in search engines (and servers) might be very handy since trinary search is better that binary one. Respectivery DB applications may be better in case of use of ternary datatypes.

Interesting, What benefits might a ternary server have over a regular server? Like would it consume more or less power? And what kind of performance increase would it be?

I actually had a discussion with a friend of mine about this, and he was saying that companies like google are always looking into more efficient servers.

Ternary hardware may do some math algorithms easier and that should potentially lead to less power consumption, but in order to do calculations better than modern binary processors we should reach modern complexity, size and speed - and it's almost impossible...

Well lets start simple then, would a ternary calculator perform better than a binary calculator?

No. It can not be cheaper than Chinese calculators. It can not be more energy efficient because we can't produce ternary integrated circuit yet. And it can not be faster because of the same reason as previous - there is no ternary IC created yet...

P.S. Probably I should learn how to create low-power binary IC first and then I can apply this knowledge to the ternary IC design...

P.P.S. Another direct advantage of any ternary design - less number of wires required (1.584962501 times less than in comparable binary design).

Been busy so I wasn't able to respond, but I did come up with some other ideas for practical application. Also, I was wondering if theoretically a ternary computers did match the complexity, size, and speed of modern day ternary computers then it could lead to lower power consumption right? With that in mind is there any way to hypothesize how much of an improvement it would be? Like are we talking 5% or 20%?

As for other ideas for practical application:
For network security it could be used to form some stronger areas of encryption. Maybe ternary based networking devices could secure internal networks by converting all the traffic on an internal network into ternary based protocols. For example it could check the UDP packets moving inside the network to see if they are using a binary based protocol. If they are binary based then this networking device could then identify it as coming from a foreign host, and then monitor and/or prevent those packets from ever reaching a CSF.

How difficult would it be to create a ternary based device capable of sending UDP or TCP packets?

You're be wondered, but it's already is
All (or most of) protocols of network connections based on trinary-packed physical level. Modulator convert binary data flow to the trinary analogue waveform flow. Inside wires we have a trinary signals. Demodulator convert this signals back to binary form.

My idea is a device that works like a "cybergun" that could be used to defend a commercial network from DDOS attacks that use botnets. It would flood the connection of the zombies essentially shooting back. Could ternary be used to give some kind of performance advantage over a regular binary based NIC?

I don't think so...

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