Because a char is meant to be used as a character type not a numerical type, and sign doesn't mean anything in that context? Yes, I know people use it to mean b

Because a char is meant to be used as a character type not a numerical type, and sign doesn't mean anything in that context? Yes, I know people use it to mean byte (even though in most cases the compiler will promote it to 16 bit or whatever the word length of the platform is) but if you mean to use an integer, you should use an integer. The only time I can think of when you would use char as an integer is on 8-bit microprocessors with limited RAM/storage (which, given they're 8-bit, they probably will be limited). But if there are other use-cases, or my understanding is wrong (I haven't done any serious C/low level work in 20 years), please do correct me.