CP1200 – Introduction to Computer Science 1

Decimal, Binary and Hexadecimal Numbers

Nerd Test
If you laugh at this you must be a nerd ☺

Q: Why do computer nerds mix Halloween up with Christmas?

A: OCT 31 = DEC 25

The Decimal Number System – Base 10

The decimal numbering system uses 10 symbols from 0 to 9.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

The Hexadecimal Number System – Base 16

Where the decimal number system uses 10 symbols (0 to 9), hexadecimal (Hexadecem is
Latin for 16) there are 16 symbols. To provide an additional 6 symbols, the letters
A to F (or a to f) are used as illustrated below.

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2A 2B 2C 2D 2E 2F

Hex Digits from 00 to FF

Where 2 digits for decimal will span from 00 to 99 providing 100 values, two digits for
hexadecimal spans from 00 to FF providing 256 values

The complete range of hexadecimal values from 00 to FF

0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F
10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 1A 1B 1C 1D 1E 1F
20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 2A 2B 2C 2D 2E 2F
30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 3A 3B 3C 3D 3E 3F
40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 4A 4B 4C 4D 4E 4F

Copyright © Colin Lemmon 2004 – 2006, JCU 1/4

 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 5A 5B 5C 5D 5E 5F
60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 6A 6B 6C 6D 6E 6F
70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 7A 7B 7C 7D 7E 7F
80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 8A 8B 8C 8D 8E 8F
90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 9A 9B 9C 9D 9E 9F
A0 A1 A2 A3 A4 A5 A6 A7 A8 A9 AA AB AC AD AE AF
B0 B1 B2 B3 B4 B5 B6 B7 B8 B9 BA BB BC BD BE BF
C0 C1 C2 C3 C4 C5 C6 C7 C8 C9 CA CB CC CD CE CF
D0 D1 D2 D3 D4 D5 D6 D7 D8 D9 DA DB DC DD DE DF
E0 E1 E2 E3 E4 E5 E6 E7 E8 E9 EA EB EC ED EE EF
F0 F1 F2 F3 F4 F5 F6 F7 F8 F9 FA FB FC FD FE FF

Q: If you and DEAD people can read HEX how many people can read HEX?
A: 57006 (#DEAE)

Binary Numbers
"There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those that understand binary, and those that don’t"

Binary is used because it can be represented by on/off, true/false, 1/0 and so on making it simple
to implement (in hardware).

Binary Decimal Hexadecimal

0000 00 0
0001 01 1
0010 02 2
0011 03 3
0100 04 4
0101 05 5
0110 06 6
0111 07 7
1000 08 8
1001 09 9
1010 10 A
1011 11 B
1100 12 C
1101 13 D
1110 14 E
1111 15 F

Copyright © Colin Lemmon 2004 – 2006, JCU 2/4

Binary to Decimal Conversion
10011010

The digits range from lowest order on the right, to highest on the left (like decimal and hex). The
decimal value can be calculated by raising 2 to the power of the position or column in which the
digit resides.

27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20

Because each value is raised to the power of 2, the value of the column is simply double the
value of the next column. The columns above therefore evaluate to the decimal values below.

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

Converting the binary number to decimal simply requires the value in the column to be
multiplied by the value of the column. As the value in a column can only be 0 or 1, this is very
simple.

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1
1 0 0 1 1 0 1 0

128 + 0 + 0 + 16 + 8 + 0 + 2 + 0 = 154

So the decimal equivalent of 10011010 is 154.

Decimal to Binary Conversion

Decimal to binary conversion requires that we move from the highest value column (left) to the
lowest value column (right) and check whether we need a 1 in that column (if the decimal value
of the column fits into the number remaining), and if so, we subtract the value of the column
from the value, continuing until the whole number is represented.
For example convert the value 78 to binary:
78
128s 0 78
64s 1 78 – 64 = 14 (14 left to represent)
32s 0 14
16s 0 14
8s 1 14 – 8 = 6
4s 1 6–4=2
2s 1 2–2=0 (finished with 1s, but we must fill every column to the right)
1s 0 0

So, the binary equivalent of 78 is 01001110.

Copyright © Colin Lemmon 2004 – 2006, JCU 3/4

Converting Between Binary and Hex
Converting Binary to hex and hex to binary is quite simple, as each hex digit (0-15) is the same
as 4 binary digits: 0000 to 1111 is also 0 to 15.

Converting binary to hex requires that the binary number is broken up into blocks of 4 digits and
the corresponding hex digit of 0 – F is substituted from the table below.

Example, convert the binary value 0101010 to hex:

0010 1010
2 A

Converting from hex to binary is done in the same way. For example convert the hex value B6 to
binary.

B 6
1011 0110

Binary Hexadecimal
0000 0
0001 1
0010 2
0011 3
0100 4
0101 5
0110 6
0111 7
1000 8
1001 9
1010 A
1011 B
1100 C
1101 D
1110 E
1111 F

Using Hex Numbers in Code

In C/C++, hex numbers are preceded by the sequence 0x (zero and x). Note that the digits A to F
can be upper or lower case.

int value = 0xB6;

is the same as

int value = 182;

Copyright © Colin Lemmon 2004 – 2006, JCU 4/4