Of course this is not new. I would have to assume that every value representation under the sun has already been invented and probably during the 60s. 61-bit

Of course this is not new. I would have to assume that every value representation under the sun has already been invented and probably during the 60s. 61-bit integers would either require long long integer arithmetic on x86 or require more dynamic branching for arithmetic ops either of which would slow down very hot paths.