Question

The greatest negative number which can be stored in computer that has $8$-bits work length and use $2$'s complement arithmetic is _____________.

• A. $-256$
• B. $-255$
• C. $-128$
• D. $-127$

Answer 1

The correct option is C $-128$

The greatest negative number which can be stored in computer that has 8-bits work length and use of 2's complement arithmetic is -128.

A two's complement 8-bit number can only represent positive integers from 0 to 127 (01111111), because the rest of the bit combinations with the most significant bit as '1' represent the negative integers −1 to −128.