Final answer:
When a signed value whose high order bit is 1 is right shifted (>>), the sign bit is propagated to the vacant bits on the left. This is known as sign extension.
Step-by-step explanation:
When a signed value whose high order bit is 1 is right shifted (>>), the sign bit is propagated to the vacant bits on the left. This is known as sign extension.
For example, if we have a signed value of -8 represented in 8 bits as 11111000, and we right shift it by 2 bits, the result will be 11111110.
In this case, the high order bit remains 1 after shifting, indicating that the value is still negative.