a) What can you say about the following number systems?

(state their advantage/s

and disadvantage/s)

Base 10 - The base 10 number system (Decimal)’s advantage is its intuitivism; we can easily count to
ten with our fingers, it is the earliest and most convenient number system and up until now, it is the most
used. Universally, bytes are 8 bits long and the decimal system only has 1, this puts the base 10 system in
an advantage.
1. Base 20
2. Base 5
3. Base 2
4. Base 16
b) Do you think it is better if we’re using other base system today aside from base
10?
c) If you were given the chance to change our current number system, what number
base system would you want and why? If not, why did you say so?

a. What can you say about the following number systems? (state their advantage/s and
disadvantage/s)

Base 10 - The base 10 number system (Decimal)’s advantage is its intuitivism; we can easily count to
ten with our fingers, it is the earliest and most convenient number system and up until now, it is the
most used. Universally, bytes are 8 bits long and the decimal system only has 1, this puts the base 10
system in an advantage.
1. Base 20 -
The base 20 or Vigesimal base is considered as a part of the numeric base system
civilization. Among the other bases, this has the widest range, because of this characteristic,
it encompasses larger numbers that the other bases aren’t able to include. However, this is
the least used base among the others since it is known only in selected places.
2. Base 5 -
Base 5 functions the same way as base 12 and 10 in providing structural place value benefits.
Since the other compared bases are larger, they are more often used in larger amounts than base
5, but it would be useful in specific trading purposes. Base 5 is one of the simplest bases but, it
wasn’t used as much as base 10.
1. Base 2 -
Since base 2 (Binary) is represented only by “1” or “0”, this is by far the simplest one. It
encompasses the other bases and is being represented by fewer figures instead of larger
numbers. The downside of Binary is when the number gets larger, the equivalent gets longer
as well making it complex to read compared to the higher bases.
2. Base 16 -
Base 16 or Hexadecimal numbers are simple in generating hexadecimal notation compared
to the other bases. It uses numbers and letters in representing higher numbers which
includes numbers 1 to 9 and letters A to F (representing 10 to 15). On the other hand,
hexadecimal is created because reading a bunch of “1” and “0” is difficult and time
consuming.
 b. Do you think it is better if we’re using other base system today aside from base 10?
Yes. I believe that having a common mostly used base system is important to avoid conflicts
However, it is also good to have another base system that encompasses higher numbers such as
the base 20 in order to lessen the limitations of representing a number. For me, base 10 and 20 is
enough to satisfy the needs of numeric bases.

c. If you were given the chance to change our current number system, what number base
system would you want and why? If not, why did you say so?

For me, I would not change anything, I’d introduce the base 20 system rather. Decimal system is the
simplest and convenient base system among the others therefore it is reasonable to not omit it in our
current base system. Changing it would cause confusion to everyone and we could avoid that by just
giving suggestions or additional ideas in improving the base system today.

Three major advantages of the decimal system are that:

1) it is highly intuitive since one can count to ten using their fingers.

2) it doesn’t have too many digits making it easier to grasp, especially for kids.

3) it is efficient in terms of string lenght when dealing with very large/small numbers
which is a desired feature in many scientific fields except for computer sciences because:

a) it’s more reliable to transmit only 2 different voltage levels per wire at a time whereas
a system of 10 different levels would be more susceptible to transmission errors.

b) the size and energy consumption of a computer’s circuitry system would rise a lot
with a higher number system.

c) binary arithmetic is full of boolean algebra which is also used to describe the
functionality of junctions in digital circuitries.

The only actual disadvantages are :

Hardware is binary and other multiples of 2 based.

Decimal has 13 symbols (0 - 9 + -.) , so to represent letters or hardware addresses, or
CPU commands,etc, we need to make decimal codes of that can be ambiguous.
For example if we want to transfer 1000 pieces of memory data from one address to
another, what decimals should we use to tell the computer to do that?

5. Say 5 is the command to start a memory transfer.

Issue command 5.152322.172222.1000
“Transfer 1000 memory locations from location 152322 to 1722222.”
That would work, and that is how some of the earliest computers were programmed,
actually. But that would be for a Base-10 computer with base 10 internals.
The basic units of computer hardware are bytes, words, long words, and machine
instructions.
Bytes are pretty much universally 8 bits long.
Words are taditionally 16 bits (2 bytes), now 32 bits (4 bytes) long.
Long words are 32, 64, 128 bits long.
Machine Instructions are 32 , 64 and 128 bits long depending on the CPU.
Bits are binary of course, with only two states (0,1). So what is common to all the
above?
base 2 of course (binary)
. 8=23,16=24,32=25,64=26,128=278=23,16=24,32=25,64=26,128=27 …
Octal and Hexadecimal have the advantage of being directly convertible to binary as
groups of 3 and 4 bits, respectively.

What are the advantages of hexadecimal system?

I will assume you mean in contrast to other counting systems, like decimal, octal, or binary.

It has the property that each hex digit maps to exactly four bits, which means that every byte
can be exactly represented by exactly two hex digits. This makes it easy to align the data in
regular columns for things like a memory dump. In contrast, the ten decimal digits cannot
be mapped to a specific set of bits in a byte, and some bits will be shared between digits in
the decimal notation. Binary and octal have that same property as does hex, however, they
are less dense, especially binary, which is also difficult for humans to read. Octal has that
odd asymmetry because the number of bits in a 8, 16, 32 or 64 bit word doesn’t divide nicely
by the 3 bits in an octal digit.

Perhaps the strongest property of hex is the extreme simplicity of generating hex notation
for output. Using some masks, shifts, and a small lookup table, it is possible to create hex
ASCII output in very few efficient instructions. In contrast, outputting in decimal notation
requires division, which may not even exist natively on some CPUs, and probably doesn’t
exist for larger word sizes on many CPUs.

 You need fewer digits to express a number than you would if you were to use
binary.
 But on the other hand, you can easily convert from hexadecimal to binary and
back, because every hex digit corresponds to four bits.

The main advantage of a Hexadecimal Number is that it is very compact and by using a base
of 16 means that thenumber of digits used to represent a given number is usually less than in
binary or decimal. Also, it is quick and easy to convert between hexadecimal numbers and
binary.
Hexadecimal numbers use "base 16", which means you have 16 numerals from which you can
construct other numbers. Here are the numerals that are the "base" of the hexadecimal system:
{0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, A, B, C, D, E, F}.

You may notice that in that set, we have a mix of what you would term "numbers" ( e.g. 0 - 9)
and "letters" (e.g. A - F). Specifically, letters of the English alphabet. This will present a
problem for most people who are used to representing the number "eleven" using the numeral
"11" rather than using the hexadecimal equivalent of "B".

Another disadvantage would be that any variables used in any mathematical equation must NOT
use any combination or single representation of the symbols "A" thru "F" as variables. This is
because you would have no way to distinguish between the numbers in hexadecimal that rely
upon those numerals/symbols in their construction.
The only disadvantage I can think of that is that humans find it hard to deal with. But, it was not
designed for humans. It was designed because of the difficulty in reading a bunch of 0's and 1's;
it was designed to provide an easy way to read binary.

Unlike an octal or a decimal, a hexadecimal fits evenly into a byte. Yes, conversion is hard to do
in your head, but it is not for you. It is for the machine.

There are tools that do it automatically; they are build into every OS. For example, Stan Hanks,
my good friend, has this in his bio: "Have made OS's since #7b7". I had to convert it and did the
following, using the Unix command.......

What are the benefits and disadvantages of the octal

counting system that the decimal system doesn’t
have?
Advantages:

 Less digits
 Can be directly translated into binary and vice versa when you have a octal number
just replace the octdigits with 3 bits binary strings (0=000, 1=001, 2=010, 3=011,
4=100, 5=101, 6=110, 7=111) and finally remove all leading zeros to the left and
when you do binary to octal just add no to 2 zeros to the left until the length is
divisible by 3 and than translate block of 3 bits.
 You can code file permissions with this[1].
Disadvantages:

 Longer numbers for less value: a 6 digit decimal can have 11 million values
(00 to 999,999999,999) but a 6 digit octal number only
has 262,144262,144possible values
(00 to 777,7778=262,14310777,7778=262,14310) that’s almost 4 times less.
 More rational numbers would need a never ending digit string after the octal
point[2]
 Very little use in the real world.

The main advantage of using binary is that it is a base which is easily represented by
electronic devices and for which calculation can be carried out using reasonably simple
active electronics (simple transistor circuits), since it only requires on and off (1 and 0)
signals (however they might be represented). Binary data is also reasonable simple to
store - again only needing a two state storage (on/off - 1/0).

The main disadvantages are around human usability :

 Difficult for most people to read

 takes a lot of digits to represent any reasonable number (for instance up to 99
million takes 8 digits in Decimal and 27 digits in Binary).

Base 5

Other bases such as 5 and 12 provide the same structural place value benefits as base 10. However,
when numbers less than one are concerned, base 10 provides friendly decimals for the most common
fractions of half, quarter, three-quarters. Base 5 is not user friendly at all in this regard. Base 12 would
provide nice dozenimals(?) for the same fractions, but not for the commonly used tenths or fifths. Of
course, it may be that the reason these are the commonly used fractions is that they do match base 10
so well. However, the conclusion drawn here is that the wisdom of the mathematicians like Lagrange
and Laplace, even when compelled to oppose political forces, is vindicated and we have, for practical
purposes, a number system which stands up strongly to scrutiny.

Base 20 disadvantage only