Many programmers became very proficient in their use of octal. Not only could they convert between binary and octal with ease, they could also do arithmetic in octal. A quick look at this table of octal addition facts shows that they did not have to learn much that was different from the decimal addition facts they already knew. The introduction of the 8-bit byte ensured the use of hexadecimal, Base 16, in computing. Its nickname is hex .
Life is filled with trade-offs.
Making one thing easier or better often requires learning more. Consider these facts. Hexadecimal requires 16 different symbols, six more than we have available from decimal. Hexadecimal uses a quarter the number of digits needed to represent a value in binary. 64 Meg or 128 Meg of RAM in a personal computer is now not uncommon.