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Message: [QUOTE="Frank, post: 574432"] In terms of reading and storing, binary information is managed by bytes. But, in your example, you're dealing with 16 bits at a time, which is easily managed by a single short primitive. So, you can load this information in as: DataInput input=new DataInputStream( your_input_source ); short encoded=input.readShort(); //just one way to get a short int temp=encoded >>> 12; //highest 4 bits int reading=(encoded & 0x0FF8) >> 3; int therm_name=encoded & 0x0007; which allow you to treat each value by itself as something a bit more natural... recombining: short combine(int temp, int reading, int therm_name) { //only using assert to make sure params are in range assert (temp & 0x000F) == temp; assert (reading & 0x01FF) == reading; assert (therm_name & 0x0007) == therm_name; return (short) ( (temp<<12) | (reading<<3) | therm_name ); } Hope this helps to shed some light on your question! Frank [/QUOTE]