What are the three different ways negative numbers can be represented in Binary?

Question

I am new to Binary and we are learning it for my computer hardware class. Since I am just learning, I am not very sure how to represent negative numbers in binary.

I believe they are Signed magnitude, ones complement, and two's complement, but I need an example. I'm not really sure how to show how this is done exactly.

Have you looked at Wikipedia? There are examples there and a separate page for each of the three. — Ross Millikan, Sep 29 '15 at 02:49

Brock Brown · Accepted Answer · 2015-09-29T02:58:45.053

3

There's no shame in representing decimal -2 as binary -10. In computer science there are different ways to represent negative numbers.

Sometimes, in a method called one's compliment, in order to take the negative number you need to flip all of the bits; for example, 101 negated would be 010.

In a method called two's compliment, you start from the right, find the first '1', and invert all of the bits to the left of that '1': 101001000 negated would be 010111000

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Signed_number_representations

Anyway, it really just depends on how you want to represent it.

edited Sep 29 '15 at 02:58

answered Sep 29 '15 at 02:53

Brock Brown

566

2

Have you no shame, sir? – marty cohen Sep 29 '15 at 03:00
Thank you, I understand it now. – VNrutgib Sep 29 '15 at 03:02

What are the three different ways negative numbers can be represented in Binary?

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