I previously discussed the signed magnitude solution to representing signed integers as binary strings and pointed out that while it had the advantage of being simple, it also has some disadvantages. For starters, N-bit signed magnitude integers have two representations for zero: positive zero (a bitstring with N zeros) and negative zero (a bitstring with …
Tag: magnitude
Nov 18 2015
Binary Signed Integers – Signed Magnitude
We humans and our meat computers don’t have any trouble recognizing the sign of a number. If there is a minus sign, “-,” in front of a number, that number is negative. If a number is prefixed by a plus sign, “+,” or, the more likely case, has no prefix at all, then the number …