PLC Numbers and Data

Base 10 (decimal) numbers developed naturally because the original developers (probably) had ten fingers, or 10 digits. Now consider logical systems that only have wires that can be on or off. When counting with a wire the only digits are 0 and 1, giving a base 2 numbering system. Numbering systems for computers are often based on base 2 numbers but base 4,8,16 and 32 are commonly used. A list of numbering systems is given in table 1 below. An example of counting in these different numbering systems is shown in table 2. 

Base	Name	Data Unit
2	Binary	Bit
8	Octal	Nibble
10	Decimal	Digit
16	Hexadecimal	Byte

Figure : Table 1: Numbering system

Decimal	Binary	Octal	Hexadecimal
0	0	0	0
1	1	1	1
2	10	2	2
3	11	3	3
4	100	4	4
5	101	5	5
6	110	6	6
7	111	7	7
8	1000	10	8
9	1001	11	9
10	1010	12	A
11	1011	13	B
12	1100	14	C
13	1101	15	D
14	1110	16	E
15	1111	17	F
16	10000	20	10
17	10001	21	11
18	10010	22	12
19	10011	23	13
20	10100	24	14

Figure : Table 2 : Numbers in Decimal, Binary, Octal and Hexadecimal

The effect of changing the base of a number does not change the actual value, only how it is written. The basic rules of mathematics still apply, but many beginners will feel disoriented. This chapter will cover basic topics that are needed to use more complex programming instructions later.