One's Complement Calculator

This one's complement calculator lets you find the one's complement to convert negative decimal values to binary. It also converts a decimal number to binary and its one's complement.

Clear
Two's complement11010110how computers actually store signed integers
One's complement11010101
Sign and magnitude10101010
Unsigned reading of those bits214
HexadecimalD6
Range at 8 bits-128 to 127

Why two’s complement won

Zeroone representation, not two
Additionworks unchanged for signed values
Rangeone extra negative value (-128)
Negationflip the bits and add 1

The rule

one's complement flips the bits; two's adds 1 to that

Three ways to store a sign

Sign and magnitude uses the top bit as a sign flag. One's complement flips every bit. Both suffer from two zeros — positive and negative — and need special-case addition.

Two's complement adds one to the one's complement. It has a single zero, and ordinary binary addition works correctly across signs with no extra logic. That is why essentially every processor uses it.