What is the hexadecimal number system used for and who invented it?

Answer 1

In mathematics and computer science, base-16, hexadecimal, or simply hex, is a numeral system with a radix or base of 16 usually written using the symbols 0–9 and A–F or a–f. For example, the decimal numeral 79 whose binary representation is 01001111 can be written as 4F in hexadecimal (4 = 0100, F = 1111). The current hexadecimal system was first introduced to the computing world in 1963 by IBM. An earlier version, using the digits 0–9 and u–z, was used by the Bendix G-15 computer, introduced in 1956.

A common use of hexadecimal numerals is found in HTML and CSS. They use hexadecimal notation (hex triplets) to specify colours on web pages; there is just the # symbol, not a separate symbol for "hexadecimal". Twenty-four-bit color is represented in the format #RRGGBB, where RR specifies the value of the Red component of the color, GG the Green component and BB the Blue component. For example, a shade of red that is (238,9,63) in decimal is coded as #EE093F. This syntax is borrowed from the X Window System.

Example of conversion from hexadecimal triplet to decimal triplet: Hexadecimal triplet: FFCF4B

Separate the triplets: FF CF 4B

Convert each hexadecimal value to a decimal representation:

FF = 15*16 + 15*1 = 255
CF = 12*16 + 15*1 = 207
4B = 4*16 + 11*1 = 75
Hexadecimal triplet FFCF4B = Decimal triplet 255,207,75

Hexadecimal is used also in more generic computing, as the most commonly found form of expressing a guaranteeably human-readable string representation of a byte. All the possible values of a byte (256 values) can be represented using 2 digits in hexadecimal notation. Some people assume that using 8-bit "ASCII" to represent the value of a byte should work, but this has a number of problems, firstly there are a number of unprintable control characters, secondly ASCII itself stops at 7 bits with the remainder being system specific extentions and finally even assuming all characters in the machines set were displayable as something neither users nor input methods are generally prepared to handle 256 unique characters.

In URLs, all characters can be coded hexadecimally, even those not normally permitted. Each 2-digit (1 byte) hexadecimal sequence is preceded by a percent sign and refers to a specific ASCII character code. For example, in the URL [1], the ASCII character code for a space (" ") is 20.

Knuth, Donald. (1969).

Answer 2

Hi. Hex is used primarily to simplify computer code writing. It allows the binary numbers which the computer uses (it can ONLY do binary with today's technology) to be expressed in a way that we can read. Hex is 16 based so we use 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 A B C D E F. The next number is 10.

Answer 3

What Is The Hexadecimal System

Answer 4

It is the positional system of numeration that uses hexadecimal digits and a radix or base of 16 written using symbols 0-9 and
A-F or a-f.It was used by the Bendix G- 15 computer ,introduced in 1956.