Numeric Base Confusion

Comments joke about and debate interpretations of numbers in binary, hexadecimal, octal, decimal, and BCD, often referencing a specific code display or thumbwheel settings on old hardware.

📉 Falling 0.4x Hardware
3,315
Comments
20
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5
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#2771
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Activity Over Time

2007
4
2008
25
2009
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2010
74
2011
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2012
109
2013
182
2014
171
2015
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2016
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2017
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2018
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2019
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2021
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2026
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Keywords

CS REPL DNS BusyBox pm.png ARM ID businessinsider.com POSIX ASCII binary hex decimal dec 65 73 ascii numbers digits bytes

Sample Comments

gpderetta Dec 14, 2016 View on HN

That's what hexadecimal digits are for :)

fuzztester Sep 29, 2023 View on HN

he he. try octal on em, will be harder.

sullyj3 May 1, 2016 View on HN

Ironic to write in binary a number which is only significant in decimal.

kw71 Mar 25, 2017 View on HN

Maybe it's thinking in BCD

tdd1 Aug 4, 2013 View on HN

Yes dude,it just an example hexadecimal representation. Don't take everything so literally...

pan69 Mar 7, 2014 View on HN

That's not even hexadecimal...

blueintegral May 6, 2016 View on HN

Apparently it's binary coded decimal.

gatehouse Jan 7, 2014 View on HN

Mental conversion between binary, octal, decimal, and hex is a minefield.

jonsen Dec 13, 2015 View on HN

It didn't do neither hex nor octal.

cozzyd Oct 1, 2025 View on HN

Add your toes and you get hexadecimal!