2 convenience not convince edited Jan 25 '14 at 18:33 Logan Mayfield 64033 silver badges1111 bronze badges We use them for convinceconvenience and brevity. Hex and Oct are really outstanding compressed representations of binary. Hex in particular is well suited to condensed forms of memory addresses. Every oct digit directly maps to 3 binary bits and every hex digit to 4 binary bits. This is a result of the bases (8 and 16) being powers of 2 ($$2^3$$ and $$2^4$$). For example, I can write binary $$01101001$$ as hex $$69$$ or if I extend it with a leading zero as oct $$151$$. So, say you need a 64 bit memory addresses. You can either look at all 64 binary bits, or get it condensed to 16 hex digits. Often you don't need to compare a few addresses to see if their the same or contiguous. Would you rather look at 64 bits or 16 digits? We use them for convince and brevity. Hex and Oct are really outstanding compressed representations of binary. Hex in particular is well suited to condensed forms of memory addresses. Every oct digit directly maps to 3 binary bits and every hex digit to 4 binary bits. This is a result of the bases (8 and 16) being powers of 2 ($$2^3$$ and $$2^4$$). For example, I can write binary $$01101001$$ as hex $$69$$ or if I extend it with a leading zero as oct $$151$$. So, say you need a 64 bit memory addresses. You can either look at all 64 binary bits, or get it condensed to 16 hex digits. Often you don't need to compare a few addresses to see if their the same or contiguous. Would you rather look at 64 bits or 16 digits? We use them for convenience and brevity. Hex and Oct are really outstanding compressed representations of binary. Hex in particular is well suited to condensed forms of memory addresses. Every oct digit directly maps to 3 binary bits and every hex digit to 4 binary bits. This is a result of the bases (8 and 16) being powers of 2 ($$2^3$$ and $$2^4$$). For example, I can write binary $$01101001$$ as hex $$69$$ or if I extend it with a leading zero as oct $$151$$. So, say you need a 64 bit memory addresses. You can either look at all 64 binary bits, or get it condensed to 16 hex digits. Often you don't need to compare a few addresses to see if their the same or contiguous. Would you rather look at 64 bits or 16 digits? 1 answered Jan 25 '14 at 15:46 Logan Mayfield 64033 silver badges1111 bronze badges We use them for convince and brevity. Hex and Oct are really outstanding compressed representations of binary. Hex in particular is well suited to condensed forms of memory addresses. Every oct digit directly maps to 3 binary bits and every hex digit to 4 binary bits. This is a result of the bases (8 and 16) being powers of 2 ($$2^3$$ and $$2^4$$). For example, I can write binary $$01101001$$ as hex $$69$$ or if I extend it with a leading zero as oct $$151$$. So, say you need a 64 bit memory addresses. You can either look at all 64 binary bits, or get it condensed to 16 hex digits. Often you don't need to compare a few addresses to see if their the same or contiguous. Would you rather look at 64 bits or 16 digits?