On Tue, 26 Oct 2010, Michael R N Dolbear wrote:

Sam Wilson wrote

... but they are distinguishable, even in languages that do not offer
access to the bit patterns as such.

... though I don't know of any higher-level languages that let you
distinguish between +0 and -0 integers even on hardware that supports
the distinction. (And FWIW the TCP/IP suite uses ones-complement
arithmetic in its checksum calculations.)

Fortran on the Univac/Unisys 1100 series (which used one-complement
single and double integers and indeed floating point). IIRC the CDC
6600/7600 was the same in providing functions for bit-wise AND, OR, XOR
and NOT.

I wandered off this thread early on, as i'm not that interested in the
machinations of Oyster. I return to find that some truly superb drifting
has been done. Well done, chaps, you guys could give the Tokyo mob a run
for their money!

tom

--
Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when
there is nothing left to take away. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupery