The Microcontroller Idea Book - Jan Axelson's Lakeview Research

Number Systems
Appendix C
Number Systems
Designing and programming microcontroller circuits often involves working with different
number systems, including hexadecimal and binary as well as familiar decimal numbers.
Hexadecimal and binary systems are useful because they offer an easy-to-interpret way of
expressing the bit- and byte-oriented values that computers use. This appendix is a review
of these number systems.
About Number Systems
A number system provides a way to express numerical information. Each of the number
systems described below varies in the number, or quantity, on which it is based (10, 2, or
16). This determines, among other things, how many characters you need to express a given
quantity.
Decimal Numbers
In the decimal number system used in everyday (non-computer) life, there are ten digits
(0-9). Each digit in a number represents a value raised to a power of 10.
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