why did computer science settle on base16 for compact binary representation over the doubly compact base32?

Question

For example colours #ff0000, Unicode points \u{003F} and others all use hex.

In: Engineering

Answer 1

The point of using hex isn’t compactness, it’s human readability. Inside the computer, it’s all binary anyway. Octal was also used in the old days (and is still often supported), but ever since the word sizes got standardized to 8 bits and multiples thereof, hex has most often struck the right balance between compactness and readability.