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NumberingSystemsTutorial

NumberSystems
DecimalSystem
Mostpeopletodayusedecimalrepresentationtocount.Inthedecimalsystemthereare10
digits:
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9
Thesedigitscanrepresentanyvalue,forexample:
754.
Thevalueisformedbythesumofeachdigit,multipliedbythebase(inthiscaseitis10
becausethereare10digitsindecimalsystem)inpowerofdigitposition(countingfromzero):

Positionofeachdigitisveryimportant!forexampleifyouplace"7"totheend:
547
itwillbeanothervalue:

Importantnote:anynumberinpowerofzerois1,evenzeroinpowerofzerois1:

BinarySystem
Computersarenotassmartashumansare(ornotyet),it'seasytomakeanelectronicmachine
withtwostates:onandoff,or1and0.
Computersusebinarysystem,binarysystemuses2digits:
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0,1
Andthusthebaseis2.
EachdigitinabinarynumberiscalledaBIT,4bitsformaNIBBLE,8bitsformaBYTE,two
bytesformaWORD,twowordsformaDOUBLEWORD(rarelyused):

Thereisaconventiontoadd"b"intheendofabinarynumber,thiswaywecandeterminethat
101bisabinarynumberwithdecimalvalueof5.
Thebinarynumber10100101bequalstodecimalvalueof165:

HexadecimalSystem
HexadecimalSystemuses16digits:
0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F
Andthusthebaseis16.
Hexadecimalnumbersarecompactandeasytoread.
Itisveryeasytoconvertnumbersfrombinarysystemtohexadecimalsystemandviceversa,
everynibble(4bits)canbeconvertedtoahexadecimaldigitusingthistable:

Decimal Binary Hexadecimal

(base10) (base2) (base16)
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NumberingSystemsTutorial

0000

1
2

0001
0010

1
2

0011

0100

5
6

0101
0110

5
6

0111

8
9

1000
1001

8
9

10

1010

11

1011

12
13

1100
1101

C
D

14

1110

15

1111

Thereisaconventiontoadd"h"intheendofahexadecimalnumber,thiswaywecan
determinethat5Fhisahexadecimalnumberwithdecimalvalueof95.
Wealsoadd"0"(zero)inthebeginningofhexadecimalnumbersthatbeginwithaletter(A..F),
forexample0E120h.
Thehexadecimalnumber1234hisequaltodecimalvalueof4660:

ConvertingfromDecimalSystemtoAnyOther
Inordertoconvertfromdecimalsystem,toanyothersystem,itisrequiredtodividethedecimal
valuebythebaseofthedesiredsystem,eachtimeyoushouldremembertheresultandkeep
theremainder,thedivideprocesscontinuesuntiltheresultiszero.
Theremaindersarethenusedtorepresentavalueinthatsystem.
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Let'sconvertthevalueof39(base10)toHexadecimalSystem(base16):

Asyouseewegotthishexadecimalnumber:27h.
Allremainderswerebelow10intheaboveexample,sowedonotuseanyletters.
Hereisanothermorecomplexexample:
let'sconvertdecimalnumber43868tohexadecimalform:

Theresultis0AB5Ch,weareusingtheabovetabletoconvertremaindersover9to
correspondingletters.
Usingthesameprinciplewecanconverttobinaryform(using2asthedivider),orconvertto
hexadecimalnumber,andthenconvertittobinarynumberusingtheabovetable:

Asyouseewegotthisbinarynumber:1010101101011100b
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SignedNumbers
Thereisnowaytosayforsurewhetherthehexadecimalbyte0FFhispositiveornegative,it
canrepresentbothdecimalvalue"255"and"1".
8bitscanbeusedtocreate256combinations(includingzero),sowesimplypresumethatfirst
128combinations(0..127)willrepresentpositivenumbersandnext128combinations
(128..256)willrepresentnegativenumbers.
Inordertoget"5",weshouldsubtract5fromthenumberofcombinations(256),soitwe'llget:
2565=251.
Usingthiscomplexwaytorepresentnegativenumbershassomemeaning,inmathwhenyou
add"5"to"5"youshouldgetzero.
Thisiswhathappenswhenprocessoraddstwobytes5and251,theresultgetsover255,
becauseoftheoverflowprocessorgetszero!

Whencombinations128..256areusedthehighbitisalways1,sothismaybeusedtodetermine
thesignofanumber.
Thesameprincipleisusedforwords(16bitvalues),16bitscreate65536combinations,first
32768combinations(0..32767)areusedtorepresentpositivenumbers,andnext32768
combinations(32767..65535)representnegativenumbers.
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