As was already stated, if 11111110 is -1 for a byte, this will be read as an even number.
It will work on signed numbers if 2's complement is used.
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Seeing as bit 0 is the sign bit, perhaps the bit will be shifted to the 3rd position instead?
I don't know, but it sounds logical.
My bad. It's the last bit (31th for 4 bytes), not the first (bit 0).