
4-30
x86 MICROPROCESSORS
4.7 | Signed Number Arithmetic
In all our discussions and problems, whenever we dealt with numbers, we assumed the
numbers to be unsigned. Now, let us bring signed numbers also into our domain.
Negative numbers are represented in the two’s complement format. When the data
length is one byte, the maximum value of decimal numbers it can represent is −128 to
+127. With 16 bits, this is from −32,768 to +32,767. If the result of any operation exceeds
this word size, the overflow flag is set. This indicates that our result has to be re-inter-
preted and corrected. The conditions under which the overflow flag is set can be stated ...