Chapter 12. Unusual Bases for Number Systems
This section discusses a few unusual positional number systems. They are just interesting curiosities and are probably not practical for anything. We limit the discussion to integers, but they can all be extended to include digits after the radix point—which usually, but not always, denotes non-integers.
12–1 Base –2
By using –2 as the base, both positive and negative integers can be expressed without an explicit sign or other irregularity, such as having a negative weight for the most significant bit (Knu3). The digits used are 0 and 1, as in base +2; that is, the value represented by a string of 1’s and 0’s is understood to be
(an...a3a2a1a0) = an(–2)n + ... + a3(–2)3 + a2(–2)2 + a1(–2) + a0.
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