What is the purpose of the hexadecimal numbering system?

Answer 1

Hexadecimal number system is a number sytem with a Base of 16. The 'regular' system which we use every day is base-ten (decimal), with the digits 0-9.

Having a base 16 system makes it easier to represent values of computer memory, as computers deal in binary (base 2), where every value is either one or zero (on or off).

With hexadecimal, the digit values range from zero to fifteen, so symbols are needed to represent ten, eleven, ... fifteen as single digits. The letters A through F were chosen, so:

• A represents ten
• B = eleven
• C = twelve
• D = thirteen
• E = fourteen
• F = fifteen

Answer 2

Hexadecimal is simply short-hand for binary numbers. Because hexadecimal is base 16 or 24 , every 4 binary bits can be expressed as a single hexadecimal character. For example, 1110 is E in hexadecimal and 1111 0011 1000 1010 is written as F38A in hexadecimal. Writing memory addresses, binary code, or IP addresses in hexadecimal results in number which has 75% less characters.

The hexadecimal system uses sixteen distinct symbols, most often the symbols 0-9 to represent values zero to nine, and A, B, C, D, E, F to represent values ten to fifteen. When dealing with large values the hexadecimal system solves this problem and it is simple to convert a hex digits into a binary digits.