News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on Negative Base. Parent comment

Re:Negative Base by gota on Thursday June 28, 2018 @08:47AM (#17416389)
Well, the number of digits tell you the sign of the number, right? It could save a sign bit

I think the ideal wikipedia page for this kind of thing has a 'Properties' section from which to start thinking about this

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Negative Base by misja111 on Thursday June 28, 2018 @10:01AM (#17416905)
The bit saved for the sign is lost because you need more bits to represent a number.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Negative Base by gota on Thursday June 28, 2018 @12:32PM (#17418339)
True, and it seems you actually need exactly one extra bit for all positive numbers
[ Parent | on HN ]