Basics of Computers - Number System

The technique to represent and work with numbers is called number

system. Decimal number system is the most common number system. Other
popular number systems include binary number system, octal number system,
hexadecimal number system, etc.

Decimal Number System

Decimal number system is a base 10 number system having 10 digits from 0 to 9.
This means that any numerical quantity can be represented using these 10 digits.
Decimal number system is also a positional value system. This means that the value
of digits will depend on its position. Let us take an example to understand this.
Say we have three numbers – 734, 971 and 207. The value of 7 in all three numbers
is different−

• In 734, value of 7 is 7 hundreds or 700 or 7 × 100 or 7 × 102

• In 971, value of 7 is 7 tens or 70 or 7 × 10 or 7 × 101
• In 207, value 0f 7 is 7 units or 7 or 7 × 1 or 7 × 100
The weightage of each position can be represented as follows −

In digital systems, instructions are given through electric signals; variation is done by
varying the voltage of the signal. Having 10 different voltages to implement decimal
number system in digital equipment is difficult. So, many number systems that are
easier to implement digitally have been developed. Let’s look at them in detail.

Binary Number System

The easiest way to vary instructions through electric signals is two-state system – on
and off. On is represented as 1 and off as 0, though 0 is not actually no signal but
signal at a lower voltage. The number system having just these two digits – 0 and 1
– is called binary number system.
Each binary digit is also called a bit. Binary number system is also positional value
system, where each digit has a value expressed in powers of 2, as displayed here.
In any binary number, the rightmost digit is called least significant bit (LSB) and
leftmost digit is called most significant bit (MSB).

And decimal equivalent of this number is sum of product of each digit with its
positional value.
110102 = 1×24 + 1×23 + 0×22 + 1×21 + 0×20
= 16 + 8 + 0 + 2 + 0
= 2610
Computer memory is measured in terms of how many bits it can store. Here is a chart
for memory capacity conversion.

• 1 byte (B) = 8 bits

• 1 Kilobytes (KB) = 1024 bytes
• 1 Megabyte (MB) = 1024 KB
• 1 Gigabyte (GB) = 1024 MB
• 1 Terabyte (TB) = 1024 GB
• 1 Exabyte (EB) = 1024 PB
• 1 Zettabyte = 1024 EB
• 1 Yottabyte (YB) = 1024 ZB

Octal Number System

Octal number system has eight digits – 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. Octal number system
is also a positional value system with where each digit has its value expressed in
powers of 8, as shown here

Decimal equivalent of any octal number is sum of product of each digit with its
positional value.
7268 = 7×82 + 2×81 + 6×80
= 448 + 16 + 6
= 47010
Hexadecimal Number System
Octal number system has 16 symbols – 0 to 9 and A to F where A is equal to 10, B
is equal to 11 and so on till F. Hexadecimal number system is also a positional value
system with where each digit has its value expressed in powers of 16, as shown here

Decimal equivalent of any hexadecimal number is sum of product of each digit with
its positional value.
27FB16 = 2×163 + 7×162 + 15×161 + 10×160
= 8192 + 1792 + 240 +10
= 1023410
Number System Relationship
The following table depicts the relationship between decimal, binary, octal and
hexadecimal number systems.

HEXADECIMAL DECIMAL OCTAL BINARY

0 0 0 0000

1 1 1 0001

2 2 2 0010

3 3 3 0011

4 4 4 0100

5 5 5 0101

6 6 6 0110

7 7 7 0111

8 8 10 1000

9 9 11 1001

A 10 12 1010

B 11 13 1011

C 12 14 1100

D 13 15 1101

E 14 16 1110

F 15 17 1111
ASCII
Besides numerical data, computer must be able to handle alphabets, punctuation
marks, mathematical operators, special symbols, etc. that form the complete
character set of English language. The complete set of characters or symbols are
called alphanumeric codes. The complete alphanumeric code typically includes −

• 26 upper case letters

• 26 lower case letters
• 10 digits
• 7 punctuation marks
• 20 to 40 special characters
Now a computer understands only numeric values, whatever the number system
used. So all characters must have a numeric equivalent called the alphanumeric code.
The most widely used alphanumeric code is American Standard Code for Information
Interchange (ASCII). ASCII is a 7-bit code that has 128 (27) possible codes.
ISCII
ISCII stands for Indian Script Code for Information Interchange. IISCII was
developed to support Indian languages on computer. Language supported by IISCI
include Devanagari, Tamil, Bangla, Gujarati, Gurmukhi, Tamil, Telugu, etc. IISCI is
mostly used by government departments and before it could catch on, a new
universal encoding standard called Unicode was introduced.

Unicode
Unicode is an international coding system designed to be used with different
language scripts. Each character or symbol is assigned a unique numeric value,
largely within the framework of ASCII. Earlier, each script had its own encoding
system, which could conflict with each other.
In contrast, this is what Unicode officially aims to do − Unicode provides a unique
number for every character, no matter what the platform, no matter what the
program, no matter what the language.
 Digital Number System

A digital system can understand positional number system only where there are a
few symbols called digits and these symbols represent different values depending
on the position they occupy in the number.
A value of each digit in a number can be determined using
• The digit
• The position of the digit in the number
• The base of the number system (where base is defined as the total
number of digits available in the number system).

Decimal Number System

The number system that we use in our day-to-day life is the decimal number system.
Decimal number system has base 10 as it uses 10 digits from 0 to 9. In decimal
number system, the successive positions to the left of the decimal point represents
units, tens, hundreds, thousands and so on.
Each position represents a specific power of the base (10). For example, the decimal
number 1234 consists of the digit 4 in the units position, 3 in the tens position, 2 in
the hundreds position, and 1 in the thousands position, and its value can be written
as
(1×1000) + (2×100) + (3×10) + (4×l)
(1×103) + (2×102) + (3×101) + (4×l00)
1000 + 200 + 30 + 1
1234
As a computer programmer or an IT professional, you should understand the
following number systems which are frequently used in computers.

S.N. Number System & Description

1 Binary Number System

Base 2. Digits used: 0, 1

2 Octal Number System

Base 8. Digits used: 0 to 7

3 Hexa Decimal Number System

Base 16. Digits used: 0 to 9, Letters used: A- F
 Binary Number System
Characteristics
• Uses two digits, 0 and 1.
• Also called base 2 number system
• Each position in a binary number represents a 0 power of the base (2). Example: 20
• Last position in a binary number represents an x power of the base (2). Example:
2x where x represents the last position - 1.
Example
Binary Number: 101012
Calculating Decimal Equivalent −

Step Binary Number Decimal Number

Step 1 101012 ((1 × 24) + (0 × 23) + (1 × 22) + (0 × 21) + (1 × 20))10

Step 2 101012 (16 + 0 + 4 + 0 + 1)10

Step 3 101012 2110

Note: 101012 is normally written as 10101.

Octal Number System

Characteristics
• Uses eight digits, 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7.
• Also called base 8 number system
• Each position in an octal number represents a 0 power of the base (8). Example: 80
• Last position in an octal number represents an x power of the base (8). Example:
8x where x represents the last position - 1.
Example
Octal Number − 125708
Calculating Decimal Equivalent −

Step Octal Number Decimal Number

Step 1 125708 ((1 × 84) + (2 × 83) + (5 × 82) + (7 × 81) + (0 × 80))10

Step 2 125708 (4096 + 1024 + 320 + 56 + 0)10

Step 3 125708 549610

Note: 125708 is normally written as 12570.

Hexadecimal Number System
Characteristics
• Uses 10 digits and 6 letters, 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F.
• Letters represents numbers starting from 10. A = 10, B = 11, C = 12, D
= 13, E = 14, F = 15.
• Also called base 16 number system.
• Each position in a hexadecimal number represents a 0 power of the base
(16). Example 160.
• Last position in a hexadecimal number represents an x power of the
base (16). Example 16x where x represents the last position - 1.
Example −
Hexadecimal Number: 19FDE16
Calculating Decimal Equivalent −

Step Hexadecimal Number Decimal Number

Step 1 19FDE16 ((1 × 164) + (9 × 163) + (F × 162) + (D × 161) + (E × 160))10

Step 2 19FDE16 ((1 × 164) + (9 × 163) + (15 × 162) + (13 × 161) + (14 × 160))10

Step 3 19FDE16 (65536 + 36864 + 3840 + 208 + 14)10

Step 4 19FDE16 10646210

Note − 19FDE16 is normally written as 19FDE.

 Number System Conversion

There are many methods or techniques which can be used to convert numbers from
one base to another. We'll demonstrate here the following −

• Decimal to Other Base System

• Other Base System to Decimal
• Other Base System to Non-Decimal
• Shortcut method − Binary to Octal
• Shortcut method − Octal to Binary
• Shortcut method − Binary to Hexadecimal
• Shortcut method − Hexadecimal to Binary

Decimal to Other Base System

• Step 1 − Divide the decimal number to be converted by the value of the new base.
• Step 2 − Get the remainder from Step 1 as the rightmost digit (least significant
digit) of new base number.
• Step 3 − Divide the quotient of the previous divide by the new base.
• Step 4 − Record the remainder from Step 3 as the next digit (to the left) of the new
base number.
Repeat Steps 3 and 4, getting remainders from right to left, until the quotient
becomes zero in Step 3.
The last remainder thus obtained will be the Most Significant Digit (MSD) of the new
base number.

Example −
Decimal Number: 2910
Calculating Binary Equivalent −

Step Operation Result Remainder

Step 1 29 / 2 14 1

Step 2 14 / 2 7 0

Step 3 7/2 3 1

Step 4 3/2 1 1

Step 5 1/2 0 1
 As mentioned in Steps 2 and 4, the remainders have to be arranged in the reverse
order so that the first remainder becomes the Least Significant Digit (LSD) and the
last remainder becomes the Most Significant Digit (MSD).
Decimal Number − 2910 = Binary Number − 111012.

Other Base System to Decimal System

• Step 1 − Determine the column (positional) value of each digit (this depends on the
position of the digit and the base of the number system).
• Step 2 − Multiply the obtained column values (in Step 1) by the digits in the
corresponding columns.
• Step 3 − Sum the products calculated in Step 2. The total is the equivalent value in
decimal.
Example
Binary Number − 111012
Calculating Decimal Equivalent −

Step Binary Number Decimal Number

Step 1 111012 ((1 × 24) + (1 × 23) + (1 × 22) + (0 × 21) + (1 × 20))10

Step 2 111012 (16 + 8 + 4 + 0 + 1)10

Step 3 111012 2910

Binary Number − 111012 = Decimal Number − 2910

Other Base System to Non-Decimal System

• Step 1 − Convert the original number to a decimal number (base 10).
• Step 2 − Convert the decimal number so obtained to the new base number.
Example
Octal Number − 258 Calculating Binary Equivalent −

Step 1 − Convert to Decimal

Step Octal Number Decimal Number

Step 1 258 ((2 × 81) + (5 × 80))10

Step 2 258 (16 + 5 )10

Step 3 258 2110

Octal Number − 258 = Decimal Number − 2110

Step 2 − Convert Decimal to Binary
Step Operation Result Remainder

Step 1 21 / 2 10 1

Step 2 10 / 2 5 0

Step 3 5/2 2 1

Step 4 2/2 1 0

Step 5 1/2 0 1

Decimal Number − 2110 = Binary Number − 101012

Octal Number − 258 = Binary Number − 101012

Shortcut method - Binary to Octal

• Step 1 − Divide the binary digits into groups of three (starting from the right).
• Step 2 − Convert each group of three binary digits to one octal digit.
Example
Binary Number − 101012
Calculating Octal Equivalent −

Step Binary Number Octal Number

Step 1 101012 010 101

Step 2 101012 28 58

Step 3 101012 258

Binary Number − 101012 = Octal Number − 258

Shortcut method - Octal to Binary

• Step 1 − Convert each octal digit to a 3-digit binary number (the octal digits may
be treated as decimal for this conversion).
• Step 2 − Combine all the resulting binary groups (of 3 digits each) into a single
binary number.
Example
Octal Number − 258
Calculating Binary Equivalent −
 Step Octal Number Binary Number

Step 1 258 210 510

Step 2 258 0102 1012

Step 3 258 0101012

Octal Number − 258 = Binary Number − 101012

Shortcut method - Binary to Hexadecimal

• Step 1 − Divide the binary digits into groups of four (starting from the right).
• Step 2 − Convert each group of four binary digits to one hexadecimal symbol.
Example
Binary Number − 101012
Calculating hexadecimal Equivalent −

Step Binary Number Hexadecimal Number

Step 1 101012 0001 0101

Step 2 101012 110 510

Step 3 101012 1516

Binary Number − 101012 = Hexadecimal Number − 1516

Shortcut method - Hexadecimal to Binary

• Step 1 − Convert each hexadecimal digit to a 4-digit binary number (the
hexadecimal digits may be treated as decimal for this conversion).
• Step 2 − Combine all the resulting binary groups (of 4 digits each) into a single
binary number.
Example
Hexadecimal Number − 1516 Calculating Binary Equivalent −

Step Hexadecimal Number Binary Number

Step 1 1516 110 510

Step 2 1516 00012 01012

Step 3 1516 000101012

Hexadecimal Number − 1516 = Binary Number − 101012