Define the word octal"octal" wn "WordNet (r) 2.0"
octal
adj : of or pertaining to a number system having 8 as its base;
"an octal digit"
"octal" foldoc "The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03)"
octal
Base 8. A number representation using the
digits 0-7 only, with the right-most digit counting ones, the
next counting multiples of 8, then 8^2 = 64, etc. For
example, octal 177 is digital 127:
digit weight value
1 8^2 = 64 1* 64 = 64
7 8^1 = 8 7* 8 = 56
7 8^0 = 1 7* 1 = 7
---
127
Octal system used to be widespread back when many computers
used 6-bit bytes, as a 6-bit byte can be conveniently
written as a two-digit octal number. Since nowadays a byte is
almost always 8-bit long the octal system lost most of its
appeal to the hexadecimal system.
For a brief discussion on the word `octal' see hexadecimal.
(1997-06-16)
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