In 1716 the Swedish king Karl XII addressed Emmanuil Svedenborgu with the entertaining idea - to introduce in Sweden a numeral system with the basis 64 instead of general decimal. But the philosopher considered that the average level of intelligence is much lower than royal and offered an octal system. So it was or not - it is unknown. Besides Karl died in 1718. And the idea died together with him.
Why the octal system is necessary
Only one is important for chips of the computer. Or the signal is (1), or it is not present (0). But to write down programs in the binary code — business hard. On paper very long combinations from zero and units turn out. It is heavy to person to read them. Use of a decimal system habitual to all in computer documentation and programming is very inconvenient. Transformations from binary in decimal systems and back - very labor-intensive processes.
Origin of an octal system as well as decimal, connect with the account on fingers. But it is necessary to consider not fingers, and intervals between them. Them just eight.
The octal numeral system became a solution. At least at the beginning of the computer equipment. When the word length of processors was small. The octal system allowed to transfer with ease as binary numbers to octal, and on the contrary.
Octal numeral system - a numeral system with the basis 8. For representation of numbers in it are used figure from 0 to 7.
Transformation
To transfer octal number to binary, it is necessary to replace each figure of octal number with the three from binary figures. It is only important to remember what binary combination corresponds to number figures. It is not enough of them. Only eight!
In all numeral systems, except decimal, signs are read on one. For example, in an octal system number 610 is said "six, one, zero".
If you well know a binary numeral system, then it is possible and not to remember compliance of some numbers to others. The binary system differs in nothing from any other position system. Each category of number has the limit. As soon as the limit is reached, the current category is nullified, and before it new appears. Only one remark. This limit is very small and equal to unit! Everything is very simple! Zero will appear group of three zero — 000, 1 will turn back the sequence 001, 2 will turn into 010, etc. As an example try to transform octal number 361 to binary. The answer — 011,110,001. Or, if to reject non-significant zero, then 11110001. The transfer from a binary system to octal is similar described above. Only it is necessary to begin splitting into the three with the end of number.