Rudlof,

>Efficiency for right-shifting negative Integers doesn't seem to be very
>important, because it seems to me to be a rare (?, but I think so) case.
>Encryption algorithms don't work with negative integers AFAIK, where
>speed is definitely important.

When we had this discussion in the past - leading to the current
SmallInteger implementation - there was consensus that uses are rare
and efficiency not important.
I guess the way it is handled for SmallIntegers would be fine for
Integers in general.

Wim Boot