Cisco Networking Essentials

Exploring Hexadecimal Numbering

Another numbering system that is used extensively in computers and networking is the hexadecimal system (or hex, for short). It is used to identify network cards (MAC addresses), and it is also used when very large numbers need to be represented by using fewer positions or columns than if we used decimal.

A good example of this is memory addresses. A memory address is a specific location in memory. It is used when something that has been placed into memory needs to be located, sort of like a street address. Individual memory addresses are very small, so there are a lot of them. Using hex instead of decimal allows these large numbers to be expressed with less space. In the next section, you will learn how the hex ...