Printer Friendly
Dictionary, Encyclopedia and Thesaurus - The Free Dictionary
3,588,999,178 visitors served.
forum Join the Word of the Day Mailing List For webmasters
?
Dictionary/
thesaurus
Medical
dictionary
Legal
dictionary
Financial
dictionary
Acronyms
 
Idioms
Encyclopedia
Wikipedia
encyclopedia
?

octal

   Also found in: Dictionary/thesaurus, Acronyms, Wikipedia 0.01 sec.
octal
A numbering system that uses eight digits. It is used as a shorthand method for representing binary characters that use six-bits. Each three bits (half a character) is converted into a single octal digit. Okta is Greek for 8.

      Decimal  Binary   Octal
      0        000      0
      1        001      1
      2        010      2
      3        011      3
      4        100      4
      5        101      5
      6        110      6
      7        111      7

octal [′äkt·əl]
(mathematics)
Pertaining to the octal number system.

(mathematics)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.


How to thank TFD for its existence? Tell a friend about us, add a link to this page, add the site to iGoogle, or visit webmaster's page for free fun content.
?Page tools
Printer friendly
Cite / link
Feedback
Mentioned in?  References in periodicals archive?   Encyclopedia browser?   Full browser?
No references found
 
Salalah Free Zone manufacturer Octal is building up capacity to meet demand from markets hungry for PET packaging and expects to be the world's largest integrated PET producer in 2011.
THE port of Salalah and polyethylene terephthalate manufacturer Octal Petrochemicals have signed an agreement on the storage and transport of chemicals at the Omani port.
Byline: Times News Service MUSCAT Eoe1/4" Emerging global packaging leader OCTAL is on course to become a $1 billion company by 2011, with export volumes to global markets expected to triple over the next two years.
 
 
 
Encyclopedia
?

Terms of Use | Privacy policy | Feedback | Copyright © 2012 Farlex, Inc.
Disclaimer
All content on this website, including dictionary, thesaurus, literature, geography, and other reference data is for informational purposes only. This information should not be considered complete, up to date, and is not intended to be used in place of a visit, consultation, or advice of a legal, medical, or any other professional.