Introduction to the Octal System

Get introduced to the octal number system, and learn how to easily perform conversions from octal to binary and vice versa.

What is the octal system?

A less widely used number system is the octal system. It was developed under the same idea as the hexadecimal system, to more compactly represent binary numbers.

The octal system is different from the hexadecimal system in that it groups binary numbers into triplets to represent them, instead of quartets. For example, we can divide the number 1101101111011011 like: 011011 011011 011011.

This means the octal system is base-8, as 23=82^3 = 8.

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