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Originally Posted by WizardOfAz
At its heart, it's an 8 bit chip. To do arithmetic on more than 8 bits the compiler has to generate a sequence of operations, manage the carry bit, and so on. That's why working with 8 bit values is more efficient if what you're doing can fit in 8 bits.
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exactly - a char-char ADD op is a single instruction, whereas an int-int add requires two (and that's assuming the second ADD op automatically utilizes the set carry bit).