
D
APPENDIX
Representing Negative Integers
The industry standard method for representing negative integers is called
two’s complement. Here is how it works:
For an integer represented using 16 bits, the leftmost bit is reserved for the
sign bit. If the sign bit is 0, then the integer is positive; if the sign bit is 1,
then the integer is negative.
For example, let’s consider two numbers, one positive and one negative.
0000 0101 0111 1001 is a positive integer, which we call a.
1111 1111 1101 1010 is a negative integer, which we will call b.
Using the methodology presented in Chapter 1 for converting a binary
number to a decimal number, we can convert the ...