NUMBERS, ARITHMETIC OPERATIONS AND CHARACTERS

 Computers are built using logic circuits that operate on information represented by two- valued electrical signals.
 The label the two values as 0 and 1; and we define the amount of information represented by such a signal as a bit of information,
where bit stands for binary digit.
 The most natural way to represent a number in a computer system is by a string of bits, called a binary number.
 A text character can also be represented by a string of bits called a character code.

NUMBER REPRESENTATION

 Three systems are used for representing such numbers:

1) Sign-and-magnitude
2) 1's-complement
3) 2's-complement

 In all these systems, the leftmost bit is 0 for positive numbers and
for negative numbers.
 Figure 1 illustrates all three representations using 4-bit numbers.
 Positive values have identical representations in all systems, but negative values have different representations.
 In the sign-and-magnitude system, negative values are represented by changing the most significant bit (by in Figure 1) from 0
to in the B vector of the corresponding positive value.
 For example, +5 is represented by 0101, and -5 is represented by 1101.
 In 1's-complement representation, negative values are obtained by complementing each bit of the corresponding positive
number.
 Thus, the representation for-3 is obtained by complementing each hit in the vector 0011 to yield 1100.
 Clearly, the same operation, bit complementing, is done in converting a negative number to the corresponding positive value.
 Converting either way is referred to as forming the 1's-complement of a given number.
 The operation of forming the 1's-complement of a given number is equivalent to subtracting that number from 2ⁿ-1, that is, from
1111 In the case of the 4-bit numbers in Figure 1.
 Finally, in the 2's-complement system, farming the 2's-complement of a number is done by subtracting that number from 2ⁿ.

 Here, the 2's-complement of the number is obtained by adding to the 1's complement of that number.
 Note that there are distinct representations for +0 and -0 in both the sign-and- magnitude and 1's-complement systems, but the
2's-complement system has only one representation for 0.
 For 4-bit numbers, the value -8 is representable in the 2's complement system but not in the other system.
 The sign and magnitude system seem the most natural, because we deal with sign-and-magnitude decimal value in manual
computations.
 The 1's-complement system is easily related to this system, but the 2’s- complement system seems unnatural.
 ADDITION OF POSITIVE NUMBERS

 Consider adding two 1-bit numbers.

 The results are shown in Figure 2.
 Note that the sum of 1 and 1 requires the 2-bit vector 10 to represent the value 2.
 The sum is 0 and the carry-out is 1.
 In order to add multiple-bit numbers, we use a method analogous to that used for manual computation with decimal numbers.
 We add bit pairs starting from the low-order (right) and of the bit vectors, propagating carries toward the high-order (left) end.

ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION OF SIGNED NUMBERS

 Three systems for representing positive and negative numbers, or, simply, signed numbers.
 These systems differ only in the way they represent negative values.
 Their relative merits from the standpoint of performing arithmetic operations can be summarised as follows:
1)The sign-and-magnitude system is the simplest representation, but it is also the most awkward for addition and
subtraction operations.
2)The 1's-complement method is somewhat better.
3)The 2's-complement system is the most efficient method for performing addition and subtraction operations.

 To understand 2's-complement arithmetic, consider addition modulo N (written as mod N).

 A helpful graphical device for the description of addition mod N of positive integers is a circle with the N values, 0 through N-1,
marked along its perimeter, as shown in Figure 3.

 Consider the case N = 16.

 The operation (7+4) mod 16 yields the value 11.
 To perform this operation graphically, locate 7 on the circle and then move 4 units in the clockwise direction
to arrive at the answer 11.
 Similarly, (9 +14) mod 16=7; this is modelled on the circle by locating 9 and moving 14 units in the clockwise
direction to arrive at the answer 7.
 This graphical technique works for the computation of (a+b) mod 16 for any positive numbers a and b,
that is, to perform addition, locate a and move b units in the clockwise direction to arrive at (a+b) mod
16.

 Now consider a different interpretation of the mod 16 circle.

 Let the values 0 through 15 be represented by the 4-bit binary vectors 0000, 0001.... 1111, according to the binary number system.
 Then reinterpret these binary vectors to represent the signed numbers from -8 through +7 in the 2's-complement method (see
Figure 1). as shown in Figure(4).

 Let us apply the mod 16 addition technique to the simple example of adding +7 to -3.
 The 2's-complement representation for these numbers is 0111 and 1101, respectively.
 To add these numbers, locate 0111 on the circle in Figure(4).
 Then move 1101 (13) steps in the clockwise direction to arrive at 0100, which yields the correct
answer of +4.
 If we perform this addition by adding bit pairs from right to left, we obtain:

 Note that if we ignore the carry-out from the fourth bit position in this addition, we obtain the correct answer.
 In fact, this is always the case.
 Ignoring this carry-out is a natural result of using mod N arithmetic.
 As we move around the circle in Figure (4), the value next to 1111 would normally be 10000. Instead, we go back to the value 0000.
 We now state the rules governing the addition and subtraction of n-bit signed numbers using the 2's-complement
representation system.
1) To add two numbers, add their n-bit representations, ignoring the carry-out signal from the most significant bit (MSB)
position. The sum will be the algebraically correct value in the 2's-complement representation as long as the answer is in the range
through -2ⁿ-¹ through +2ⁿ-¹-1.

 2) To subtract two numbers X and Y, that is, to perform XY, form the 2's- complement of Y and then add it to X, as in rule
1.Again, the result will be the algebraically correct value in the 2's-complement representation system if the answer is in the
range through -2ⁿ-¹ through +2ⁿ-¹-1.
 Figure 5 shows some examples of addition and subtraction.
 The simplicity of either adding or subtracting signed numbers in 2's-complement representation is the reason why this number
representation is used in modern computers.
 It might seem that the 1's-complement representation would be just as good as the 2's-complement system.
 However, although complementation is easy, the result obtained after an addition operation is not always correct. The carry-out,
cⁿ, cannot be ignored. If cⁿ=0, the result obtained is correct.
 If cⁿ= 1, then a 1 must be added to the result to make it correct.
 The need for this correction cycle, which is conditional on the carry-out from the add operation, means that addition and
subtraction cannot be implemented as conveniently in the 1's-complement system as in the 2's-complement system.
 OVERFLOW IN INTEGER ARITHMETIC

 In the 2's-complement number representation system, n hits can represent values in the range-2 to +2-1-1.
 For example, using four bits, the range of numbers that can be represented is-8 through +7, as shown in Figure (1).
 When the result of an arithmetic operation is outside the representable range, an arithmetic overflow has occurred.

 When adding unsigned numbers, the carry-out, cⁿ, from the most significant bit position serves as the overflow indicator.
 However, this does not work for adding signed numbers.
 For example, when using 4-bit signed numbers, if we try to add the number +7 and +4, the output sum vector, 5, is 1011, which is
the code for -5, an incorrect result.
 The carry-out signal from the MSB position is 0.
 Similarly, if we try to add -4 and-6, we get S=0110=+6, another incorrect result, and in this case, the carry-out signal is 1.
 Thus, overflow may occur if both summands have the same sign.
 Clearly, the addition of numbers with different signs cannot cause overflow.
 This leads to the following conclusions:
1) Overflow can occur only when adding two numbers that have the same sign.
2) The carry-out signal from the sign-bit position is not a sufficient indicator of over- flow when adding signed numbers.

 A simple way to detect overflow is to examine the signs of the two summands X and Y and the sign of the result.
 When both operands X and Y have the same sign, an overflow occurs when the sign of S is not the same as the signs of X and Y.

CHARACTERS

 In addition to numbers, computers must be able to handle non numeric text information consisting of characters.
 Characters can be letters of the alphabet, decimal digits, punctuation marks, and so on.
 They are represented by codes that are usually eight bits long.
 One of the most widely used such codes is the American Standards Committee on Information Interchange (ASCII).