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)