Question

If we use hex because it’s a simplification of binary that makes things easier on the programmer, is easier to read than binary, and carries more data, (etc.,) why do we not jump to the next logical step, base64?

Example:

In decimal:
1,000,000₁₀

In binary:
0b11110100001001000000₂

In hex:
0xf4240₁₆

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Clearly, the base64 representation of the above will be even more compact and succinct than even the hex representation.

For that matter, why don’t we use an arbitrarily large 2ⁿ base system? Why stop at hex, specifically?

Answer 1

Hex has a useful property of using two digits to a single byte. This is very convenient for looking at raw memory, memory addresses, etc. Back in my PDP days we used octal a lot, because we could read machine code easier. Base-64 does not offer such nice divisibility: it’s 6 bits, so it is 4 digits for 3 bytes.