(Image-1)

A word

• Is a group of 16 consecutive bits

The bits

• Are counted from right to left starting at 0 (Image-1):

Considered as a group of 16 bits (Image-1)

• The most right bit of a word, bit 0, is called the least significant bit or Low Order bit or LO bit or LOBIT
• The most left bit, bit 15, is called the most significant bit or High Order bit or HI bit or HIBIT
• The other bits are referred to using their positions: bit 1, bit 2, bit 3, etc

(Image-2)

Considering that a word is made of two bytes (Image-2)

• The group of the right 8 bits is called the least significant byte or Low Order byte or LO byte or LOBYTE
• The other group is called the most significant byte or High Order byte or HI byte or HIBYTE

The most fundamental representation of a word in binary format

• Is 0000000000000000 (B-1)

(B-1) To make it easier to read

• You can group bits in 4, like this: 0000 0000 0000 0000 (B-2)

(B-2) The minimum binary value represented by a word

• Is 0000 0000 0000 0000

(B-2) The maximum binary value represented by a word

• Is 1111 1111 1111 1111

The minimum decimal value of a word

• Is 0

To find out the maximum decimal value of a word

• You can use the base 2 formula, filling out each bit with 1 (B-3):

Example of (B-3)

• 1*2¹⁵+1*2¹⁴+1*2¹³ + 1*2¹² + 1*2¹¹ + 1*2¹⁰ + 1*2⁹ + 1*2⁸ + 1*2⁷ + 1*2⁶ + 1*2⁵ + 1*2⁴ + 1*2³ + 1*2² + 1*2¹ + 1*2⁰

= 32768 + 16384 + 8192 + 4096 + 2048 + 1024 + 512 + 256 + 128 + 64 + 32 + 16 + 8 + 4 + 2 + 1
= 65535

The minimum hexadecimal value you can store in a word

• Is 0×0000000000000000 (B-4)

(B-4) This is also represented

• As 0×00000000, or 0×0000, or 0×0
• All these numbers produce the same value, which is 0×0

 To find out the maximum hexadecimal number you can store in a word

• Replace every group of 4 bits with an f or F (Image-3)

(Image-3)

Counting on base and extending the table we used earlier

• We would get (Image-4)

(Image-4)