bit patterns of all ones

[Doug Gwyn]

In article <599 at mcgill-vision.UUCP> mouse at mcgill-vision.UUCP (der Mouse) writes:
>Does ANSI explicitly require binary arithmetic?

For purposes of signed<->unsigned conversion of parameters
and bitwise operations, X3J11 decreed semantics "as if" a
binary numeration system were used.  The underlying architecture
can, however, be quite different, so long as the implementation
properly mimics the abstract machine.