Re: On Binary Digits

On Wed, 02 Apr 2025 16:37:49 +0000, Ben Collver wrote:

On 2025-04-01, Richmond <dnomhcir@gmx.com> wrote:

Ben Collver <bencollver@tilde.pink> writes:
>

To cope with this problem some workers have devised their own
conventions of writing and pronouncing such numbers. A system in use
at the Bell Telephone Laboratories would set off the above figure in
groups of three digits:
>
    11,110,101,000
>
and would then pronounce each group of three (or less) separately as
its decimal equivalent. The first binary group, 11, is the equivalent
of the decimal 3; the second, 110, of the decimal 6; the third, 101,
of the decimal 5. (000 is zero in any notation.) The above would then
be read, "Three, six, five, zero."

>
This is called Octal, is it not.

 
Yes this is called Octal.  I only recall using octal in two places:
C escape sequences (\033) and Unix file mode bits (755), both
coincidentally from Bell.

I still use octal when using the chmod command, as I never learned the
syntax of the alternative. All the bit meanings are burned into my brain.



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