Binary Number Formats
Typically we write binary numbers as a sequence of bits. The “bits” is short for “binary digits” in a machine. There are defined format boundaries for these bits. These format boundaries have been represented in the following table:
Name |
Size in bits |
Example |
Bit |
1 |
1 |
Nibble |
4 |
0101 |
Byte |
8 |
0000 0101 |
Word |
16 |
0000 0000 0000 0101 |
Double Word |
32 |
0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0000 0101 |
We may add as many leading zeroes as we wish without changing its value in any number base however we normally add leading zeroes to adjust the binary number to a desired size boundary.
For example, we can represent the number 7 as in different cases as shown in the table:
15141312 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
|
Bit |
1 1 1 |
Nibble |
0 1 1 1 |
Byte |
0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 |
Word |
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 1 |
Where the rightmost bit in a binary number is bit position zero and each bit to the left is given the next successive bit number as shown in the above table.
Bit zero is usually referred to as the Least Significant Bit or LSB and the left most bit is typically called the Most Significant Bit or MSB. Let us know about these formats of representation:
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