Why is 1 Byte equal to 8 Bits? 

I’ts been a minute since I took computer organization, but the relevant wiki on ‘Byte’ gives some context. The byte was originally the smallest number of bits that could hold a single character (I assume standard ASCII). We still use ASCII standard, so 8 bits per character is still relevant. This sentence, for instance, is 41 bytes. … Read more

Implement division with bit-wise operator

The standard way to do division is by implementing binary long-division. This involves subtraction, so as long as you don’t discount this as not a bit-wise operation, then this is what you should do. (Note that you can of course implement subtraction, very tediously, using bitwise logical operations.) In essence, if you’re doing Q = … Read more

How many bits is a “word”?

I’m not familiar with either of these books, but the second is closer to current reality. The first may be discussing a specific processor. Processors have been made with quite a variety of word sizes, not always a multiple of 8. The 8086 and 8087 processors used 16 bit words, and it’s likely this is … Read more

max value of integer

In C, the language itself does not determine the representation of certain datatypes. It can vary from machine to machine, on embedded systems the int can be 16 bit wide, though usually it is 32 bit. The only requirement is that short int <= int <= long int by size. Also, there is a recommendation that int should represent the native capacity of the processor. All types … Read more