Why can a byte have a maximum value of 127, as opposed to 255?

Question

A byte is 8 bits, which allows it to have a maximum value of 11111111, which in denary is 255. Can someone explain? Is it because the first value indicates positive or negative?

Thanks

Answer 1

Well, a byte can have 256 different states. This is either from 0 to 255 (an unisigned byte) or -127 to 127 (a signed byte). Either way, there are 255 states. This is true for all architectures that use an 8-bit byte ,which is nearly all of them, excluding some ancient ones.

Answer 2

A byte representing an unsigned integer can store a value between 0 and 255. A byte represending a signed integer can store a value between -127 and 127.

In short - yes

Answer 3

its -128 to 127