C++ Primer Plus

A. Number Bases

Civilizations have used many systems to represent numbers. Some systems, such as Roman numerals, are ill suited for doing arithmetic. On the other hand, the Hindi number system, modified and transmitted to Europe as the Arabic number system, facilitated calculations for mathematicians, scientists, and merchants. Modern computer number systems are based on the placeholder concept and use of zero that first appeared with the Hindi number system. However, they generalize the principles to other number bases. So although our everyday notation is based on the number 10, as described in the next section, the computing world often uses numbers based on 8 (octal), 16 (hexadecimal), and 2 (binary).

Decimal Numbers (Base 10)

The method ...