Number Base Converter

A number base (or radix) is how many unique digits a counting system uses before it carries over to a new place value. Decimal (base 10) uses digits 0-9, binary (base 2) uses only 0-1, octal (base 8) uses 0-7, and hexadecimal (base 16) uses 0-9 and A-F.

Computer hardware is built from transistors that are most reliably read as one of two states — on or off — which maps naturally to binary's two digits, 0 and 1.

Each hex digit represents exactly 4 binary digits (bits), so a byte (8 bits) is always exactly 2 hex digits. That makes hex a compact, human-readable shorthand for binary data — commonly seen in color codes, memory addresses, and error codes.