octal

2 definitions found

octal - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  octal
      adj 1: of or pertaining to a number system having 8 as its base;
             "an octal digit"

octal - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  octal
  
     <mathematics> 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)