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Interesting reading about Setun 
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The ones who interested in history of ternary computing can read the following web-page - The creator of ternary computer.


17 Oct 2006 14:24
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And yet another interesting document - Setun's reflection. The story looks incomplete, but there are some really rare photos and events :)


17 Oct 2006 14:28
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I've read these articles with great interest. I would love to see the instruction set of the SETUN and the Setun-70 (especially the 70). I have 'read' descriptions in Googlish (google translated Russian) but would be much happier to read explanations that were clearer and in English, or a compilable language like C, Java, etc. The 'description' on the online simulator is completely impenetrable for me, though some of the Googlish (Original Russian) is almost understandable.


08 Dec 2010 20:58
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I would love to see the instruction set of the SETUN and the Setun-70 (especially the 70).


The difference between Setun's and Setun-70's instructions set is really small, only one or two rarely used instructions of Setun were modified in Setun-70. As result the machine became stack-based (actually two stacks - command and data) and instead of using 24 base hardwired instruction programmer can use up to 81 new instruction: 27 base, 27 system (for I/O, etc) and 27 user defined. Sadly there are no implementation of these command sets in modern languages :(

But I have many docs and articles about these machines in russian language and will try to find and translate them into english for you. As far as I remember some article contain description and kind of simulation of Setun-70 architecture with examples written in Algol, so this might be usefull.


09 Dec 2010 01:43
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jay4th wrote:
The 'description' on the online simulator is completely impenetrable for me, though some of the Googlish (Original Russian) is almost understandable.


Do you mean this simulator?
http://en.trinary.ru/projects/setunws/


09 Dec 2010 06:06
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Yes that one. For example, there is no hint on the pages there about how trit #9 works in calculating an effective address. The googlish I read made it clear that trit #9 does something like:

effective address = address + trit9*some-register

So address + some-register
or address - some-register
or address

is the effective address. Cool idea, nice clean way to encode an instruction set (with a minor issue). But not obvious from any English documents. (I hate the way national languages isolate people.)

Oh, the minor issue: The contents of a register are naturally stored in trinary, so naturally already support negative numbers... so seems like there is a bit of wasted effort. Both the register, and bit 9 can call for reverse indexing. And it introduces concerns about double-reversals. This is an example where binary might make more sense, or the third value could be used for something else like maybe

(if trit9 == 0)
effective address = address
(if trit9 == 1)
effective address = address + some_register
(if trit9 == -1)
effective address = address + 3*some_register

Anyway, I know I could learn a lot by looking over their instruction set. If only I could find something I could read and understand.

OK, who out there is working on a re-implementation of Setun or Setun 70?


09 Dec 2010 19:47
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Mac Buster wrote:
The difference between Setun's and Setun-70's instructions set is really small, only one or two rarely used instructions of Setun were modified in Setun-70.


Wow, I totally didn't understand that from the googlish I read. I got the impression that Setun-70 was not an 9/18 trit machine, but was a 6/12/18 trit machine. So a very different instruction set, word size, etc. I do remember the bit about "just changed a few instructions" but I didn't think that was Setun-70 vs Setun, but rather Setun-70 V1.0 compared to Setun-70 V2.0. But I was reading old technical Russian through a computer 'translation' and am *certain* I missed and mis-understood parts.


09 Dec 2010 19:55
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OK, who out there is working on a re-implementation of Setun or Setun 70?


As far as I know there are no such projects now. But at least one was in past - http://pyramid.codeplex.com/ (no idea why I think this is all about original Setun, probably been reading in someone's blog).

If you wish to start such a project, I'd like to take part in in, at least I can suppy some docs and articles about the machine.


10 Dec 2010 01:39
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I do remember the bit about "just changed a few instructions" but I didn't think that was Setun-70 vs Setun, but rather Setun-70 V1.0 compared to Setun-70 V2.0.


It could be that you're right here, I'll re-read docs. Sorry.


10 Dec 2010 01:56
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Building a Setun reimplementation, or Setun-70 would be fun. I've been playing with logisim, maybe I'll start by designing a implementation/simulation using that tool. It's the right price for me -- free! New thread?


10 Dec 2010 19:45
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jay4th wrote:
Building a Setun reimplementation, or Setun-70 would be fun. I've been playing with logisim, maybe I'll start by designing a implementation/simulation using that tool. It's the right price for me -- free! New thread?


You may create new topic in "Ternary Hardware" forum:
http://www.ternary.info/modules/newbb/v ... hp?forum=5


11 Dec 2010 07:48
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Forums on ternary.info are obsolete now, so new ternary topics in English must be created here:

http://www.nedopc.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=62

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10 Nov 2012 09:01
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