
17Number Systems
2.7 USE OF BCD NUMBER TO REPRESENT A DECIMAL NUMBER
BCD format is a representation in which each decimal digit replaces a four-bit binary
number.
A decimal number cannot store in a computer except in binary format. Therefore, it can
be stored in BCD format. 0
d
is 0000
bcd
. 1
d
is 0001
bcd
. 9
d
is 1001
bcd
. 38
d
is 0011 1000
bcd
.
Let us assume there are 16 bananas. In the BCD system, when 0000 will represent first
banana, second banana by 0001, the third by 0010, fourth by 0011 and so on. 0001 0101 will
represent the last banana. Table 2.5 shows the numbers in the BCD system starting from
0000, that represents the first, second, third, fourth, ...