Hi there
sorry if I tell you about a piece of the puzzle you understand ... the $ is short hand for hexadecimal.
10, for examples, could be the next integer after 9 ... or 16 (in base 16) or 4 (in base 4) ...
So Royce is using $ as the "it is hex" ... you can just as easy take any $numbers can convert them to decimal then pop them straight into the BCR (which expects integers).
I am sure others will wade in with answers to your other questions.
Regards
Steve H