Two hundred and fifty-five

Two hundred fifty-five (255) is a special number in some tasks having to do with computing. This is the maximum value of a Byte, the smallest common variable size used in high level programming languages (Bit being smaller, but rarely used for value storage). The range is 0 to 255, which is 256 total values.

This number frequently occurs in video games when a small number is needed.

• There are exactly 255 levels in Pac-Man.
• In The Legend of Zelda, the maximum number of coins you may have at one time is 255.

Other common numbers include 127, 32767, 65535, 2147483647 and 4294967295 -- all of which are 2 raised to a power, minus 1. Representative of signed and unsigned 8, 16 and 32 bit numbers. The popular Intel CPU's have had registers of these sizes.

In 2003 64 bit processors are gaining popularity so expect to see the numbers 18446744073709551615 and 9223372036854775807. 128 bit numbers are larger than can be typically displayed without using Engineer's notation. 2^127 (max value of a signed 128 bit number, in 1's or 2's complement notation it may be 1 lower) is 1.7014118346046923173168730371588e+38 and 2^128 is 3.4028236692093846346337460743177e+38.