Abstract: Decoder is an important component in ternary optical computer (TOC), which can translate the optical arithmetic component’s output signal into corresponding electronic signals. A kilobit automatic decoder based on the current ternary optical computer is discussed. The decoding system is composed of four cameras and an embedded board. The cameras capture pictures exported from the optical arithmetic component, and process them with an embedded board to produce the result. The decoding software in the embedded system includes photographic control, numeric-generation and output-control. Address-locating, blue-reduction and self-checking techniques are proposed. Address-locating solves the problem that the arithmetic component’s
output pixels do not precisely match the pixels captured by the cameras. Blue-reduction solves the problem of serious jam of the dark state from blue lights. Self-checking improves accuracy and reliability of the decoder.

Key words: address-locating, automatic decoder, blue-reduction, selfchecking, ternary optical computer (TOC)