Bin Conversions

I know this topic is practically overused, but here's my version. It includes Octal which seems rarely included, but it is used in some dumps. Had to learn some octal for my Cobol(*nightmare*) class, don't ask. But anyways, i attached it.

Not to bad. You don't see octal because it really isn't used much anymore. Unles of course you want to progam in Cobol. That was such a fun class ;) Or something like that.

BTW> convering everything to binary then to decimal works, but is not the "proper" way to do it. Someone mentioned this in the other thread on hex to dec.

The proper way for octal is
(#*8^x)+(#*8^x)+.......+(#)
Where # is the digit, and X is the colum number with the far right column =0
and for hex is...
(#*16^x)+(#*16^x)+.......+(#)
and of course binary....
(#*2^x)+(#*2^x)+.......+(#)

That is a lot easier to remember then a giant table of numbers...

I realize it's not the proper way, but I'm not a math person, and it's easier for me to convert 1 hex digit to 4 bits, then to think and do math.

Octal is useful if you're working in a *nix environment, since the file permissions are mapped to octal e.g. 777 gives everyone rwx (read, write, execute) access, whereas 700 denies access to anyone except the owner of the file (and root of course).

If you have a calculator on hand and want to convert large numbers, then the way souleman suggests is the most useful. However, when working everything out by hand it is easier to convert to binary as a middle step (unless of course you are converting to/from binary anyway, in which case it's even easier).

[quote]Octal is useful if you're working in a *nix environment, since .....{/quote]
Good point.. although it is just as easy thinking decimal or hex in that case, since it is always 0 to 7.

I was just telling the "proper" way to convert from xxx to dec. Going to bin first is always easier if you are doing it by hand....