Table of contents

How Computers Think: Binary, Decimal and Hexadecimal

Introduction

History of (human) numbers

Refined by introduction of zero and the place system - 'decimal' as we know it 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10, 100, 1000... Allows us to deal with very large numbers, and fractions. Proven successful over time.

How Computers Count

Binary - Decimal Comparison

Maximum different values we can represent with n bits is 2n. One BYTE = 8 BITS One BYTE holds 2n = 256 different values. ASCII is a code for most characters between 0 & 255 Oh yeah, computers typically start counting at zero!

ASCII Codes in Decimal

Hexadecimal

Bin - Hex - Dec Comparison

So Why Hex?

Communicating With Our Electronics

Calculator Demo Counting to 1000

So why base 60?

Theory #1

Theory #3

The Real Reason

Author: Andrew O'Neill

E-mail: oneill@phys.columbia.edu

Homepage: http://phys.columbia.edu/~oneill

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