Positional Number Systems
Decimal, Binary, Octal and
Hexadecimal Numbers
Wakerly Section 2.1-2.3
Positional Number Systems
• The traditional number
system is called a
positional number system. 6354 6 *1000 3*100 5 *10 4
• A number is represented
as a string of digits. p 1
• Each digit position has a D di 10i
weight assoc. with it.
i 0
• Number’s value = a
weighted sum of the digits
Fractions: Weights that are
Negative Powers of 10
1 2
425.97 4 *10 2 *10 5 *10 9 *10 7 *10
2 1 0
p 1
D d 10
i n
i
i
Binary Numbers
p 1
B i
b 2
i n
i
100101.0011
• The “base” is 2 instead of 10
• Meaning: the weights are powers
of 2 instead of powers of 10.
• Digits are called “bits,” for “binary
digits.”
Quiz
Convert the following binary numbers to
decimal:
•1011011.0110
•00110.11001
Octal and Hexadecimal (“Hex”)
Numbers
• Octal = base 8
• Hexadecimal = base 16
– Use A – F to represent the values 10 through 16
in each position.
Decimal Binary Octal Hex
5 101 5 5
6 110 6 6
7 111 7 7
8 1000 10 8
9 1001 11 9
10 1010 12 A
11 1011 13 B
12 1100 14 C
13 1101 15 D
14 1110 16 E
15 1111 17 F
Usefulness of Octal and Hex
Numbers
• Useful for representing multibit binary
numbers because their radices are integer
multiples of 2.
10 0101 1010 1111 . 1011 1112 = 2 5 A F . B E16
Quiz: Convert from Binary to
Octal:
•1 101 011 110 111
•11 011.101 1
Decimal-to-Radix-r Conversions
• Radix-r-to-decimal conversions are easy
since we do arithmetic in decimal.
• However, decimal-to-radix-r conversions
using decimal arithmetic is harder.
• To do the latter conversion, we convert the
integer and fractional parts separately and
add the results afterwards.
Decimal-to-Radix-r Conversions:
Integer Part
• Successively divide number by r, taking remainder as
result.
• Example: Convert 5710 to binary.
57 / 2 = 28 remainder 1 (LSB)
/2 = 14 remainder 0 Ans: 1110012
/2 = 7 remainder 0
/2 = 3 remainder 1
/2 = 1 remainder 1
/2 = 0 remainder 1 (MSB)
Decimal-to-Radix-r Conversions:
Fractional Part
• Successively multiply number by r, taking integer part as
result and chopping off integer part before next iteration.
• May be unending!
• Example: convert .310 to binary.
.3 * 2 = .6 integer part = 0
.6 * 2 = 1.2 integer part = 1 Ans = .01001
.2 * 2 = .4 integer part = 0
.4 * 2 = .8 integer part = 0
.8 * 2 = 1.6 integer part = 1
.6 * 2 = 1.2 integer part = 1, etc.
Quiz
Convert from decimal to binary:
•0.5
•73.426
•290.9