mon-2 complement, non-8bit byte machines

ugenn · 11-20-2003, 08:00 PM

Hi,

does anyone know of any CPUs out there which do not encode signed integers in 2-complement binary or uses non 8-bit bytes? How crucial is it to handle such scenarios when trying to write code (C/C++) that is portable?

jailbait · 11-21-2003, 10:21 AM

"does anyone know of any CPUs out there which do not encode signed integers in 2-complement binary or uses non 8-bit bytes?"

I haven't seen one of those since I programmed an IBM 1440 in 1964.

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ugenn · 11-21-2003, 11:47 AM

whoa...1964.....a "real" programmer...

anyway, to the other coders out there, is it common practice these days to assume certain things not specified by ISO C/C++ in order to achive practical 'portability'? Personally, I find the Standard to be some sort of a relic at best and at worst, broken since no compiler I know of is able to fully implement it, which kind of defeats the purpose of standardization. Wonder what ur comments are on this?

jailbait · 11-21-2003, 02:41 PM

"Wonder what ur comments are on this?"

You would only need to consider such things as octal machines and zoned decimal arithmetic if you are programming for a museum.

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Steve Stites