Hello there,
I am working on a digital logic assignment for uni - this is not a homework question but one of semantics.
The course is pretty basic and we are working with Boolean algebra and discrete logic circuits. One of the tasks is to design a Two's complement to One's complement converter, which in itself is fairly simple, but got me thinking: Does it make sense to call it a
complement converter?
Because I am teried of having to write "Two's complement to One's complement converter" every time I mention it - it makes for a very dull read.
I tried looking in both
Digital Computer Electronics and Roth's
Fundamentals of Logic Design but I found no real answer as none of them explain why it is called Two's and One's complement respectively.
Luckily Wikipedia had the answer to why it is called that:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two%27s_complement. (It was never mentioned in my course.)
But I still have no idea if I can call it a
complement converter.
And yes, I know that if I were to say
complement converter everybody would know what I mean, but I am looking for a more academic answer. I am also going to ask my lecturer about it, but I was curious to get a few more inputs to this as this seems to be a very interesting question of semantics and definitions and maybe other people have wondered about this or will do in the future.
Or maybe I am just missing something very obvious, but thanks in advance!
Lary