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Hexadecimal.
The stuff inside your machine.
But what is hexadecimal really?
What do the strange and unfamiliar looking hexadecimal numbers stand for?
How did hexadecimal come about?
Learn more about hexadecimal today.
What Ishexadecimal?
The hexadecimal system is used inside computer and calculators.
Hexadecimal is often abbreviated tohexandhexcomes from the wordhexagon, i.e.
Computers will often use hexadecimal inside their internal calculation systems.
There is a direct connection between binary and octal numbers and hexadecimal numbers.
What IsBinary?
There are only two possible numbers in binary (hence the termbinary, i.e.
composed of two things), and that is zero (0) and one (1).
Thus, we have binary.
So how does one count in binary, the 2-Base numerical system?
Well, what happens when we get to 9 and need to find the next number?
If you did not know how to count in binary yet, congratulations, you now know how to!
These days this skill is taught in approximately the first grade of high school.
Let’s move on to octal.
What IsOctal?
We now introduce octal, yet another computer oriented numerical system which has 8 possible symbols.
You guessed it, zero (0) to seven (7).
So what is a byte?
For example,0110 1100is a valid byte, consisting of 8 bits.
A byte is often used to store simple alphanumeric characters.
For example, the letter ‘A’ is written in binary as0100 0001.
Returning to octal, how does one count in octal?
It is because our minds are so attuned to think about 10, well, as “10”.
But 10 in octal is 8 in decimal.
To us mere humans, yes, 8-Base octal can be confusing.
To a computer, not really.
Counting inHexadecimal?
This brings us back then to counting in our 16-base numerical system: hexadecimal.
10 In hexadecimal is really 16 in decimal!
However, in hexadecimal, it can be represented byFF, which is 255 in decimal.
Note also that half a byte, 4 bits, can be stored in a single hexadecimal character.
Enjoy teaching someone to count in binary, octal or hexadecimal today!
And, if you enjoyed this article, have a look atBits, Bytes and Binary.
