ANSI C heavily mixed up the conversion rules for expressions involving both, signed and unsigned, integer types (value-preserving vs. unsigned-preserving in K&R

ANSI C heavily mixed up the conversion rules for expressions involving both, signed and unsigned, integer types (value-preserving vs. unsigned-preserving in K&R C). This might have been a factor here, given that most of Gosling's peers back then were probably still more familiar with K&R C and its different set of conversion rules.