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Understanding Different Base Systems

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This essay is targeted at new students of computer programming or computer science who want to understand how base two (binary), base eight (octal), and base sixteen (hexadecimal) work.
First of all, it's important to realize that each of these base systems is just another way of writing down the same number. When you convert a number between different bases, it should still have the same value. In this essay, when I want to refer to the actual value of a number (regardless of its base), I'll do it in base 10 because that's what most people are used to.

It's generally easiest to understand the concept of different bases by looking at base 10. When we have a number in base 10, each digit can be referred to as the ones digit, tens digit, the hundreds digit, the thousands digit, or so forth. For instance, in the number 432, 4 is the hundreds digit, 3 is the tens digit, and 2 is the ones digit.  more...

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