[skittles]

This is the best Wikipedia page on the topic: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ternary_computer

Basically, a balanced-ternary system would be smaller and more efficient than a binary system that can match it. I'd like to see an open architecture chip designed and built with balanced ternary logic. It would probably need to be made from memristors once that is feasible. We will need a computing reboot at that time anyway in order to take full advantage of memristors.