The Computer's Identity
Hexadecimal Version
Hexadecimal describes a base-16 number system. That is, it describes a numbering system containing 16 sequential numbers as base units (including 0) before adding a new position for the next number. (Note that we're using "16" here as a decimal number to explain a number that would be "10" in hexadecimal.) The hexadecimal numbers are 0-9 and then use the letters A-F. We show the equivalence of binary, decimal, and hexadecimal numbers in the table below.Hexadecimal is a convenient way to express binary numbers in modern computers in which a byte is almost always defined as containing eight binary digits. When showing the contents of computer storage (for example, when getting a core dump of storage in order to debug a new computer program or when expressing a string of text characters or a string of binary values in coding a program or HTML page), one hexadecimal digit can represent the arrangement of four binary digits. Two hexadecimal digits can represent eight binary digits, or a byte.
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