This is an artifact of typing. Is your 16 bit value all ones? Then it might represent -1 or 65535 depending on what you believe the type to be. Perhaps it repre

This is an artifact of typing. Is your 16 bit value all ones? Then it might represent -1 or 65535 depending on what you believe the type to be. Perhaps it represents some sort of colour instead. When working in an untyped environment, this sort of question doesn't come up. If the value is intrinsically unsigned then that is what you and hence the program assume those bits mean. If the value is intrinsically signed then that is your illusion. Any ideas about overflow are entirely in your mind. You tend to see techniques used in an untyped environment that would never occur to anyone in a signed environment. It's all just bits.