octal
    adj 1: of or pertaining to a number system having 8 as its base;
           "an octal digit"

	

	octal

    Base 8.  A number representation using the
   digits 0-7 only, with the right-most digit counting ones, the
   next counting multiples of 8, then 8^2 = 64, etc.  For
   example, octal 177 is digital 127:

   	digit    weight        value
   	  1     8^2 = 64   1* 64 = 64
   	  7     8^1 =  8   7*  8 = 56
   	  7     8^0 =  1   7*  1 =  7
   			          ---
   				  127

   Octal system used to be widespread back when many computers
   used 6-bit bytes, as a 6-bit byte can be conveniently
   written as a two-digit octal number.  Since nowadays a byte is
   almost always 8-bit long the octal system lost most of its
   appeal to the hexadecimal system.

   For a brief discussion on the word `octal' see hexadecimal.

   (1997-06-16)