The value of the whole numbers can be determined by the sign used before it. If the number has ‘+’ sign or no sign it will be considered as positive. If the number has ‘-‘ sign it will be considered as negative.
Eg: + 43 or 43 is a positive number,
– 43 is a negative number.
In signed binary representation, the left most bit is considered as sign bit. If this bit is 0, it is a positive number and if it 1, it is a negative number. Therefore a signed binary number has 8 bits, only 7 bits used for storing values (magnitude) and the 1 bit is used for sign.
+ 43 is represented in memory as follows:
– 43 can be represented in memory as follows:
