Signed Numbers & Overflow

Two's Complement · Wraparound

1:00

How computers encode negative numbers using two's complement, how to read and negate signed values, and what happens when arithmetic goes off the edge.

By the end, you can

Explain why two's complement replaced sign-magnitude and one's complement.
Identify the sign of an 8-bit two's complement number by looking at the MSB.
Decode any 8-bit two's complement pattern to its decimal value.
Negate a value by hand using the invert-and-add-one procedure.
State the 8-bit signed range and explain why it is asymmetric.
Sign-extend an 8-bit value to 16 bits without changing its numeric value.
Predict what value results when arithmetic overflows the signed range.
Recognize the danger of mixing signed and unsigned integer types.

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