Early History
The creation of computers lead to the creation of files containing data in various formats. For some, it was convenient to be able to access the data as a series of raw digits. Pairs of hexadecimal digits are the current standard but this is arbitrary as not all machines use words easily split into bytes. Octal was also common.
Read more about this topic: Hex Editor
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or history:
“Probably more than youngsters at any age, early adolescents expect the adults they care about to demonstrate the virtues they want demonstrated. They also tend to expect adults they admire to be absolutely perfect. When adults disappoint them, they can be critical and intolerant.”
—The Lions Clubs International and the Quest Nation. The Surprising Years, I, ch.4 (1985)
“Universal history is the history of a few metaphors.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)