Hexspeak
Encyclopedia
Hexspeak, like leet
speak, is a novelty form of variant English
spelling.
Hexspeak was created by programmers who wanted a magic number
, a clear and unique identifier with which to mark memory or data. Using hexadecimal notation
, which includes the digits 0123456789ABCDEF, it is possible to create small words with the digit "0" representing the letter "O", "1" representing the letters "I" or "L", "5" representing "S", "7" representing "T", and "6" or "9" representing "G" or "g" respectively. Numbers such as 2 or 8 can be used in a manner similar to leet
or rebus
es; e.g. the word "defecate" can be expressed either as DEFECA7E or DEFEC8. (2 bears a resemblance to Z, but because that letter is the least used in the English language, such a usage is very rare.)
s, and debugger
s make use of magic numbers, especially as a magic debug value.
Leet
Leet , also known as eleet or leetspeak, is an alternative alphabet for the English language that is used primarily on the Internet. It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters...
speak, is a novelty form of variant English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
spelling.
Hexspeak was created by programmers who wanted a magic number
Magic number (programming)
In computer programming, the term magic number has multiple meanings. It could refer to one or more of the following:* A constant numerical or text value used to identify a file format or protocol; for files, see List of file signatures...
, a clear and unique identifier with which to mark memory or data. Using hexadecimal notation
Hexadecimal
In mathematics and computer science, hexadecimal is a positional numeral system with a radix, or base, of 16. It uses sixteen distinct symbols, most often the symbols 0–9 to represent values zero to nine, and A, B, C, D, E, F to represent values ten to fifteen...
, which includes the digits 0123456789ABCDEF, it is possible to create small words with the digit "0" representing the letter "O", "1" representing the letters "I" or "L", "5" representing "S", "7" representing "T", and "6" or "9" representing "G" or "g" respectively. Numbers such as 2 or 8 can be used in a manner similar to leet
Leet
Leet , also known as eleet or leetspeak, is an alternative alphabet for the English language that is used primarily on the Internet. It uses various combinations of ASCII characters to replace Latinate letters...
or rebus
Rebus
A rebus is an allusional device that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words. It was a favourite form of heraldic expression used in the Middle Ages to denote surnames, for example in its basic form 3 salmon fish to denote the name "Salmon"...
es; e.g. the word "defecate" can be expressed either as DEFECA7E or DEFEC8. (2 bears a resemblance to Z, but because that letter is the least used in the English language, such a usage is very rare.)
Notable magic numbers
Many computer processors, operating systemOperating system
An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...
s, and debugger
Debugger
A debugger or debugging tool is a computer program that is used to test and debug other programs . The code to be examined might alternatively be running on an instruction set simulator , a technique that allows great power in its ability to halt when specific conditions are encountered but which...
s make use of magic numbers, especially as a magic debug value.
- 0x8BADF00D ("ate bad food") is used by Apple in iOS crash reports, when an application takes too long to launch, terminate, or respond to system events.
- 0x1BADB002 ("I bad boot") Multiboot header magic number.
- 0xBAADF00D ("bad food") is used by MicrosoftMicrosoftMicrosoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
's LocalAlloc(LMEM_FIXED) to indicate uninitialised allocated heap memory when the debug heap is used. - 0xCAFEBABE ("cafe babe") is used by Mach-OMach-OMach-O, short for Mach object file format, is a file format for executables, object code, shared libraries, dynamically-loaded code, and core dumps. A replacement for the a.out format, Mach-O offered more extensibility and faster access to information in the symbol table.Mach-O was once used by...
to identify UniversalUniversal binaryA universal binary is, in Apple parlance, an executable file or application bundle that runs natively on either PowerPC or Intel-manufactured IA-32 or Intel 64-based Macintosh computers; it is an implementation of the concept more generally known as a fat binary.With the release of Mac OS X Snow...
object files, and by the Java programming languageJava (programming language)Java is a programming language originally developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995 as a core component of Sun Microsystems' Java platform. The language derives much of its syntax from C and C++ but has a simpler object model and fewer low-level facilities...
to identify Java bytecodeJava bytecodeJava bytecode is the form of instructions that the Java virtual machine executes. Each bytecode opcode is one byte in length, although some require parameters, resulting in some multi-byte instructions. Not all of the possible 256 opcodes are used. 51 are reserved for future use...
class files. - 0xCAFED00D ("Cafe Dude") is used by Java as a magic number for their pack200Pack200Pack200, specified in JSR 200, is an HTTP compression method by Sun for faster JAR file transfer speeds over the network. Pack200 may also refer to the Pack200 compression tools provided in Sun's JDK since 1.5.0, as well as the Pack200 compressed files....
compression. - 0xD15EA5E ("disease") is a flag that indicates regular boot on the Nintendo GameCubeNintendo GameCubeThe , officially abbreviated to NGC in Japan and GCN in other regions, is a sixth generation video game console released by Nintendo on September 15, 2001 in Japan, November 18, 2001 in North America, May 3, 2002 in Europe, and May 17, 2002 in Australia...
and WiiWiiThe Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
consoles. - 0xDEADBABE ("Dead Babe") is used by IBM Jikes RVM as a sanity check of the stack of the primary thread
- 0xDEADBEEF ("dead beef") is frequently used to indicate a software crash or deadlock in embedded systems. It is used by IBM RS/6000RS/6000RISC System/6000, or RS/6000 for short, is a family of RISC and UNIX based servers, workstations and supercomputers made by IBM in the 1990s. The RS/6000 family replaced the IBM RT computer platform in February 1990 and was the first computer line to see the use of IBM's POWER and PowerPC based...
systems, Mac OSMac OSMac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
on 32-bit PowerPCPowerPCPowerPC is a RISC architecture created by the 1991 Apple–IBM–Motorola alliance, known as AIM...
processors and the CommodoreCommodore InternationalCommodore is the commonly used name for Commodore Business Machines , the U.S.-based home computer manufacturer and electronics manufacturer headquartered in West Chester, Pennsylvania, which also housed Commodore's corporate parent company, Commodore International Limited...
AmigaAmigaThe Amiga is a family of personal computers that was sold by Commodore in the 1980s and 1990s. The first model was launched in 1985 as a high-end home computer and became popular for its graphical, audio and multi-tasking abilities...
as a magic debug value. On Sun MicrosystemsSun MicrosystemsSun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...
' Solaris, it marks freed kernel memory. On OpenVMSOpenVMSOpenVMS , previously known as VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS or VMS, is a computer server operating system that runs on VAX, Alpha and Itanium-based families of computers. Contrary to what its name suggests, OpenVMS is not open source software; however, the source listings are available for purchase...
running on Alpha processors, DEAD_BEEF can be seen by pressing CTRL-T. The DEC Alpha SRM console has a background process that traps memory errors, identified by PS as "BeefEater waiting on 0xdeadbeef". - 0xDEADDEAD ("dead dead") is the bug check (STOP) code displayed when invoking a Blue Screen of DeathBlue Screen of DeathTo forse a BSOD Open regedit.exe,Then search: HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\services\i8042prt\ParametersThen make a new DWORD called "CrashOnCtrlScroll" And set the value to 1....
either by telling the kernel via the attached debugger, or by using a special keystroke combination. This is usually seen by driver developers, as it is used to get a memory dump on Windows NT based systems. An alternative to 0xDEADDEAD is the bug check code 0x000000E2, as they are both called MANUALLY_INITIATED_CRASH as seen on the Microsoft Developer Network. - 0xDEADFA11 ("dead fall") is used by Apple in iOS crash reports, when user force quit the application.
- 0xDEFEC8ED ("defecated") is the magic number for OpenSolarisOpenSolarisOpenSolaris was an open source computer operating system based on Solaris created by Sun Microsystems. It was also the name of the project initiated by Sun to build a developer and user community around the software...
core dumpCore dumpIn computing, a core dump consists of the recorded state of the working memory of a computer program at a specific time, generally when the program has terminated abnormally...
s. - 0xFACEFEED ("face feed") is used by Alpha servers running Windows NT. The Alpha Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) generates this error when it encounters a hardware failure.
- 0xFEE1DEAD ("feel dead") is used as a magic number in the LinuxLinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
reboot system call. - 0xE011CFD0 is used as magic numberMagic number (programming)In computer programming, the term magic number has multiple meanings. It could refer to one or more of the following:* A constant numerical or text value used to identify a file format or protocol; for files, see List of file signatures...
for Microsoft Office files. In little endian this reads D0CF11E0, "docfile0". - 0x0000000FF1CE is used as the last part of product codes (guid) for Microsoft Office components (visible in registry under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall registry key.
- 0x00BAB10C (oo-ba-block) is used as the magic number for the ZFSZFSIn computing, ZFS is a combined file system and logical volume manager designed by Sun Microsystems. The features of ZFS include data integrity verification against data corruption modes , support for high storage capacities, integration of the concepts of filesystem and volume management,...
uberblock. - C15C:0D06:F00D (cisco dog food) used in the IPv6 addressIPv6 addressAn Internet Protocol Version 6 address is a numerical label that is used to identify a network interface of a computer or other network node participating in an IPv6-enabled computer network....
of www.cisco.com on World IPv6 DayWorld IPv6 DayWorld IPv6 Day was an event sponsored and organized by the Internet Society and several large content providers to test public IPv6 deployment. It was announced on January 12, 2011 with five anchoring companies: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Akamai Technologies, and Limelight Networks. The event started...
. "Dog food" refers to Cisco eating its own dog food with IPv6. - face:b00c (facebook) used in the IPv6 addressIPv6 addressAn Internet Protocol Version 6 address is a numerical label that is used to identify a network interface of a computer or other network node participating in an IPv6-enabled computer network....
of www.v6.facebook.com
Alternative letters
- In the Ada programming languageAda (programming language)Ada is a structured, statically typed, imperative, wide-spectrum, and object-oriented high-level computer programming language, extended from Pascal and other languages...
, hexadecimal numbers are enclosed by "16#" and "#". For example, "16#Ada_Ada_Ada_Ada#". - The C programming languageC (programming language)C is a general-purpose computer programming language developed between 1969 and 1973 by Dennis Ritchie at the Bell Telephone Laboratories for use with the Unix operating system....
notation uses the "0x" prefix to indicate a hexadecimal number; the "0x" is usually ignored when reading the letters or numbers. - In the Intel assembly language, hexadecimal numbers are denoted by a "h" suffix. For example: FEEDADEADF15h ("feed a dead fish"). Note that numbers in this notation that begin with a letter have to start with a zero to distinguish them from variable names. "FEEDADEADF15h" would then be "0FEEDADEADF15h".
- In Pascal and 6502 assembly languageAssembly languageAn assembly language is a low-level programming language for computers, microprocessors, microcontrollers, and other programmable devices. It implements a symbolic representation of the machine codes and other constants needed to program a given CPU architecture...
, hexadecimal numbers are denoted by a "$" prefix. This allows for words starting with the letter "S", for example $EED ("seed"). - In Б3-34Elektronika B3-34Elektronika B3-34 was a very popular Soviet programmable calculator. It was released in 1980 and was sold for 85 rubles.B3-34 used Reverse Polish notation and had 98 bytes of instruction memory, 4 stack user registers and 14 addressable registers...
programmable calculatorProgrammable calculatorProgrammable calculators are calculators that can automatically carry out a sequence of operations under control of a stored program, much like a computer. The first programmable calculators such as the IBM CPC used punched cards or other media for program storage...
s alternative hexadecimal alphabet was used, where the symbol "−", "L", "C", "Г", "E", " " (space) were used instead of Latin letters. Using these it was possible to display messages like "EГГ0Г" (error).