Why use Binary, Octal or Hexadecimal?
The binary number system, although understood for many years, has become important, because of the importance of computers. Computers keep track of everything in their memories in the form of binary numbers. Each cell of this memory is a collection of eight binary digits called bits. A bit is like a light bulb, either on or off. Thus it may represent a 1 (on) or a 0 (off). A bit is not large enough to be useful for numbers, so we cluster eight bits together into a byte, where a byte usually represents one character. Groups of bytes may be gathered together to form large groups to make integers or real numbers. The number represented in that byte in the form of a binary number, for instance 10110111. Here each bit contributes a 0 or 1 to make up the number. Although binary is the only thing used in memory, it turns out to be too bulky to display. After all the decimal number 64 has only two digits but the binary equivalent has 7 digits. Converting to decimal is relatively complicated, s
