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John McSweeney

May 9, 2008, 3:47 pm

M150 Data, Computing and Information

Octal Number System

 

Octal notation offers another means of representing numeric values. Unlike decimal, it is based on 8, or radix of 8, rather than 10, i.e. increasing powers of 8. Octal numbers can be represented by using a combination of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. For example, the decimal number 1209 is represented in the octal 2271

= 2x512 + 2x64 + 7x8 + 1x1

83=512 82=64 81=8 80=1
2 2 8 1

 

2x512=1024 + 2x64=128 + 7x8=56 + 1x1=1

An octal digit (0 to 7) can represent 3 bits (000 to 111). Consequently it can be regarded as a shorthand version of binary.
Octal notation was widely used to provide a more readable view of binary data. It has been mostly replaced by hexadecimal notation.

 

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