📓 Basix

A notebook for number systems.

Basix is a small, single-page web app that does the tedious part of Digital Principles & System Design (DPSD) homework for you — base conversions, binary arithmetic, complements, codes, and IEEE-754 — and shows its work like a good notebook should, one worked "page" at a time.

🔗 Live demo: basix-calc.vercel.app

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Why this exists

If you've ever sat down to convert 1011.101 from binary to decimal, then had to double check your 2's complement by hand, then got asked to encode "Hi there" into 8-bit binary, you know the drill: it's not hard, it's just repetitive, and one dropped bit ruins the whole answer. Basix is built to be the calculator you wish you had during DPSD lab sessions — one that shows every step, not just the final number, so you can actually check your own work instead of just copying an answer.

Features

• Base conversion — binary, octal, decimal, hexadecimal, or any custom base from 2–36, with support for fractional values (e.g. 1011.101)
• Binary arithmetic — addition and subtraction with full carry/borrow working shown
• ASCII ⇄ Code — encode text to binary or hex, or decode it back to text
• Number system codes — Binary → BCD, Decimal → Excess-3, Binary → Gray Code
• Representations & complements — 1's and 2's complement (both "flip the bits" and full arithmetic operations), 9's and 10's complement for decimal, and interpreting a raw bit pattern as sign-magnitude, 1's complement, or 2's complement
• IEEE-754 single-precision float — break a decimal number down into sign, exponent, and mantissa
• "Show working" toggle — see the full step-by-step derivation, or just the final answer if you're in a hurry
• Copy buttons — grab the answer or the entire working, one click, no highlight-and-drag required
• History ("Earlier pages") — every problem you've worked through this session is saved so you can scroll back through it, notebook-style
• Ruled paper / graph paper themes — a little toggle in the header switches the whole app's look, and remembers your choice via localStorage

Tech stack

Nothing fancy, and that's the point:

• HTML for structure (index.html)
• CSS for the notebook look, including the ruled/graph paper themes (style.css)
• Vanilla JavaScript for every conversion, calculation, and bit of interactivity (app.js)

No frameworks, no bundler, no npm install, no build step. Open it and it just works.

Getting started

Clone it and open the file — that's the whole setup process:

git clone https://github.com/Omega-Mu-Gamma-Studio/Basix.git
cd Basix

Then either:

• Double-click index.html to open it directly in your browser, or
• Serve it locally for a nicer dev experience (avoids some browser file:// quirks):

# Python
python3 -m http.server 8000

# or Node, if you have it
npx serve .

...then visit http://localhost:8000 (or whatever port your tool of choice prints out).

Project structure

Basix/
├── index.html      # Page structure: input panel, output panel, header, footer
├── style.css        # Notebook styling + ruled/graph paper themes
├── app.js            # All the logic — conversions, arithmetic, codes, history, theming
├── assets/
│   └── fonts/       # Bundled fonts used for the notebook aesthetic
├── LICENSE           # MIT
└── README.md

How to use it

1. Type a number into the Number field.
2. Pick an Operation — conversion, arithmetic, a code, or a representation/complement task. The form adapts to show only the fields that operation actually needs (e.g. a "From Base"/"To Base" pair for conversions, a second number field for add/subtract).
3. Hit Work it out →.
4. Read the answer at the top of the right-hand page, and the full step-by-step working underneath — or switch off "Show working" if you just want the number.
5. Copy either the answer or the working with one click, and find it again later in Earlier pages.

Contributing

This is a small student-project-turned-tool, so contributions are welcome but keep it simple:

1. Fork the repo
2. Make your change in a branch
3. Test it by literally just opening index.html — there's no build step to worry about
4. Open a pull request describing what you changed and why

Bug reports and "hey, you got this operation wrong" issues are especially appreciated — the whole point of this tool is that it needs to be correct.

License

MIT — see LICENSE for the full text. Built for DPSD students, by Omega Mu Gamma Studio, © 2026.