Hex Subtraction Calculator

About this calculator

Hexadecimal subtraction works exactly like decimal subtraction, but each digit runs from 0 to F (15) instead of 0 to 9, so a borrow pulls a value of 16 from the next column rather than 10. Subtracting 1 from 10 in hex, for example, requires borrowing and produces F, since the column just below the borrowed 1 has 16 available rather than 10.

Hex shows up constantly in low-level programming — memory addresses, color codes, byte values, and CPU register contents are all conventionally written in hexadecimal because each hex digit maps cleanly onto exactly 4 binary bits, making it a compact stand-in for binary. Developers subtracting memory addresses to find a buffer size, working out an offset between two pointers, or debugging a hex dump by hand use a calculator like this to avoid manual borrowing errors, which are easy to make once letters A through F enter the mix.

Enter two hexadecimal numbers and the calculator subtracts the second from the first, showing the result in both hex and decimal.