ASCII/Hex/Binary Converter

ASCII (American Standard Code for Information Interchange)

ASCII is a character encoding standard that represents text in computers. It assigns a unique number to each character, with standard ASCII using 7 bits (0-127) and extended ASCII using 8 bits (0-255).

In payment systems, ASCII is commonly used for human-readable data fields like cardholder names, merchant information, and transaction descriptions.

Hexadecimal (Hex)

Hexadecimal is a base-16 number system that uses 16 distinct symbols: 0-9 and A-F (or a-f). Each hex digit represents 4 bits, making it a compact way to represent binary data.

In payment systems, hex is widely used for representing binary data in a readable format, including cryptographic keys, EMV tags, and ISO 8583 message fields.

Binary

Binary is a base-2 number system that uses only two symbols: 0 and 1. It directly represents how data is stored and processed in computers.

In payment systems, binary representation is important for understanding bit-level operations, such as bitmaps in ISO 8583 messages, cryptographic operations, and hardware-level interfaces.

Common Conversions in Payment Systems

• ASCII to Hex: Converting human-readable data to a format suitable for cryptographic operations
• Hex to ASCII: Interpreting message fields that contain text data encoded in hex
• Hex to Binary: Analyzing bit patterns in data elements, especially for debugging
• Binary to Hex: Representing binary data in a more compact, readable format for documentation or transmission