Be familiar with the concept of a number base, in particular:
- decimal (base 10)
- binary (base 2)
- hexadecimal (base 16).
Binary is base 2 meaning that only a 0 or a 1 can be used to represent numbers.
Decimal is base 10, meaning the numbers 0-9 are used to represent numbers (this is the standard base).
Hexadecimal is base 16, since there are only 10 numbers the final 16 must be made up using letters. The set used to represent hexadecimal is as follows: {0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F}
Convert between decimal, binary and hexadecimal number bases.
| Start Base | Final Base | How to | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Decimal | Binary | Remove the largest power of two possible and place a 1 in that column in the binary number. Then remove the largest power of two and do the same, repeat until the number has been fully represented. |
176 to binary Step 1: 176 - 128 = 48, Binary: 1 0000000. Step 2: 48 - 32 = 16, Binary: 1 0 1 00000 Step 3: 16 - 16 = 0, Binary: 1 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 176 = 10110000 |
| Binary to Hex | |||
| Hex to Binary |