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

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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.