What was your first hex code?
I remember it like it was yesterday: my first hex code! 
It was back in 1998 when I had just started to learn HTML and was creating my first web site. I was looking for a smooth nice shade of yellow to go with the feel I was after.
So, the first hex code I ever learned by heart, and has not forgotten since, was #ffffa2.
What was your first hex code?
39 Comments/Reactions
January 30th, 2009 at 15:46
I can’t remember my first hexcode, but before that I remember my first worded colour. I really liked dodgerblue, which turns out as #1E90FF. How nostalgic.
January 30th, 2009 at 15:59
Haha, great nostalgia for a friday afternoon. I can’t remember my first hex code, I think it was some kind of blue. The earliest one I still remember (and one I know I’ll never forget) is #cc0001, a red that was used for one of our sites for many years.
January 30th, 2009 at 16:03
As a fresh programmer in the mainframe environment back in -84, i came accross ‘0xC7′, wich means system crash.
Never forgot that one
January 30th, 2009 at 16:23
#000
…once you go #000 – you never go back!
January 30th, 2009 at 17:41
It was back in 1998 too. I had a homepage similar to every other homepage back then, on which I wanted to have the same hover effects as a friend had on his homepage; something similar to a telescopic sight. For that, something called Zee Ess Ess was used (hacker stuff …), the code looked like this: a:hover {text-decoration:underline overline; cursor: crosshair; color:#00EE00;}
Something extremly green.
January 30th, 2009 at 18:41
I believe it is white – #ffffff – the 6 letter code. The news that I can do it in 3 came much later.
January 30th, 2009 at 19:11
*sigh* I feel so old… When I saw “first hex code”, I started trying to remember what the first assembly language program I’d written was, and whether it was for a Z80 or a 6502 microprocessor. Does hand-tweaking 3 bytes to bypass Elite’s ultra-annoying “LensLok” copy protection scheme on my Commodore 64 count? I think that was my first, or at least the first that I worked out on my own. I’d been playing with disassemblers and hex editors for quite a while before that.
If you’re talking about hexadecimal representations of RGB tuples for specifying colors, then I can’t say I ever learned any of them, per se. I’m pretty comfortable with hex in general and had been doing RGB color manipulation for quite some time before this newfangled web thingy came along, so I can usually do pretty well just devising them as I go.
January 30th, 2009 at 19:29
My first hex-code was 0×5C, long before you wrote colors using hex values. It was when I was programming C (I’m proud admit I came out as a geek early) in my early days and you had to translate the backslash character to the numeric keyboard and use the alt key and press 9 and then 2 (alt-9-2). This was the way to get the \ character on swedish keyboards, before the AltGr key was invented.
January 30th, 2009 at 19:30
#66ccff
January 30th, 2009 at 19:32
…that’s the earliest one I can remember – see it in action here
January 30th, 2009 at 19:44
#369 – the classic.
January 30th, 2009 at 20:12
I can’t recall, most likely #000 or #fff
January 30th, 2009 at 20:35
Blegh — I thought you meant real hex code.
My first experience with Hex was working with application development for Macintosh computers circa 1995.
January 30th, 2009 at 22:23
Hm, maybe #c0c0c0, which I believe was the default grey color of Netscape 0.96.
January 31st, 2009 at 0:34
Whoopy! the first time I learned about hexcode dates back to the days of the Philips MSX home computer my dad brought home from work. I didn’t have any fixed memory, harddrive or whatever: so every piece of code, game, program you wented to do, you’d have to type the complete code first, get out all the typos before executing and then when you were finished and turned it of everything was gone so the next time you had to start typing all over again… later on we got a cassetteplayer to record our programs so they could be reloaded…the good old days…
January 31st, 2009 at 2:12
#000, then #fff a close second…like ten seconds later!
January 31st, 2009 at 11:55
#cccccc – a distinguished gray
January 31st, 2009 at 20:02
cd 21… from MS-DOS assembly in debug.com
January 31st, 2009 at 22:59
#f00 (or #ff0000) for the brightest pencil red. When testing that’s the colour I still put in to check borders and backgrounds while figuring out layouts… or just the word red…
Garish, lively and loud.. perfect for debugging. However if there’s a hangover involved I moved straight to the keyword cyan and ignore Hex entirely lol…
But garish yellow? Mmmm…
January 31st, 2009 at 23:49
#006600 because it was the nearest “web-safe colour” (remember those?) to the shade of green ink I used the very first time I set metal type and used a printing press.
That had been in 1975, in the same week that I first used a computer.
There were some good extra-curricular activities at my school
February 1st, 2009 at 20:01
#036 and #048 being shades of blue.
February 1st, 2009 at 20:50
The first hex code for a colour was probably
#800000(maroon?) but I must have used hex numbers some 20 years ago, when I programmed the Commodore 64. I ‘m sure I learnt hex back then, but can’t remember what I needed it for.February 1st, 2009 at 22:18
I figured #000 would be a first for just about everyone.
For the longest time, I was in love with either #C00000 or #00C000.
Now I find every excuse I can to use #DEFACE. And that’s what happens when vandals become designers…or vice versa.
February 2nd, 2009 at 10:33
Thanks for sharing everyone!
Silly me only thought of color representation, so thanks for everyone pointing out other various usage!
February 2nd, 2009 at 17:52
I just wanted to say fuck on one of your pages, since you closed the discussion over on the clickonce extension entry. It’s a fucking great word.
kthxbye
February 2nd, 2009 at 23:54
it was something like #6633cc .. or was it #cc6633 .. some variation with these numbers makes a nice shade of rosy pink <3
it is #cc3366
February 3rd, 2009 at 13:29
Mike,
Actually, it’s not the word itself I have anything against, it’s when you think that by using it, you become more trustworthy and eloquent.
Mi,
Nice!
February 9th, 2009 at 2:40
Oh, I can’t remember. Colors and color models always fascinated me so one of my first computer programs (using Visual Basic 6 back then…) was a color picker (which also calculated hex colors if I recall correctly). That was long before I got involved with web development. So the answer probably is “looots of them”
February 9th, 2009 at 7:41
Lea,
That counts too.
February 23rd, 2009 at 0:20
Interesting idea. Sadly I don’t remember my first hex color, but I think I know which one I’ve used the most (except black and white then); #EFEFEF. No matter what design I work on I always end up needing a light shade of gray and that one always manages to fit right in. Not too dark, not too bright.
February 23rd, 2009 at 12:21
Tobbe,
Yes, that’s an old favorite!
April 12th, 2009 at 9:09
I remember my first experience with hex code when I purchased a Roland digital keyboard synthesizer and my first computer an Atari 1040st in 1991. In order to control the functions of the synth via computer you had to send the messages in hex code. The code that I remember most was to reset the instrument to General Midi Standard which was (F0 7E 7F 09 01 F7). Each 2 digit code addressed a certain function of the instrument. Same as each 2 digit color code is for Red Green Blue
First, I had to learn to convert decimal (counting by 10s) into hexadecimal (counting by 16s). Also, hex code starts with zero so if your counting 16 it would be (0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F) then back to zero. I hope you were aware enough to notice that when you count this way you end up at 15, this is because you started with zero. When you reach 15 or 0F hex then you would carry the 1 over to the second place to get 16 which is 10 hex. So if you want 31 it would be 1F hex (1×16)+15. If you want 64 it would be 40 hex (4×16)+0.
Example: My musical instruments volume display went from 0 to 100 however, the hex code was 0 to 127 so in order to make the volume 50 I would have to send the code 63 which is 3F hex.
Another example are color codes:
If you have the hex color #CC6633 the RGB equivilant is.
Red: CC (12×16)+12=204
Green: 66 (6×16)+6=102
Blue: 33 (3×16)+3=51
This conversion is helpful to know if your using a paint program like Corel or Photoshop because these programs use RGB not hex and the range is 0 to 255 when you specify a color. so if you wanted the same color for your web page you would heve to convert it to hex.
Well now that your totally confused, don’t blame me, I was just trying to help! If you really want to blame someone click over here: The binary numeral system
April 14th, 2009 at 21:22
Jonny,
Wow, thanks for sharing!
April 23rd, 2009 at 23:29
Haha #99ccff! And of course #000000 and #ffffff.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:58
Tabitha,
Nice, thanks for sharing!
April 29th, 2009 at 22:27
Around about 1975. I bought a single board computer called the KIM-1; a demonstrator board from MOS Technology for it’s eight bit microprocessor.
Here’s a picture
It had a hex readout for address and data, plus a hex keyboard for data entry. I spend many hours writing programs on paper in assembly language and then hand assembling them into hex machine code. They you enter them using the keyboard one byte at a time.
It was a simpler time … and I was in heaven.
Peace,
Rob:-]
April 29th, 2009 at 22:33
Rob,
Maybe simpler, but definitely lesser options.
Thanks for the picture!
November 17th, 2009 at 14:25
Well, we used 0xdeadbabe to initialize memory and check for memory errors later
0xdeadbeef is also pretty common
0xbad00bad is another one ..
Got more?
November 17th, 2009 at 14:32
Ashish,
Nice ones!
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