Octal

2 definitions found

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  octal
       adj : of or pertaining to a number system having 8 as its base;
             "an octal digit"

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:



  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}.
       
          (1997-06-16)