The unsigned integer question

[grandixximo]

@rene-dev about the signed and unsigned integer use, these are what I found.

• encoder.N.counts => joint.N.jog-counts (s32 to s32): every MPG pendant configuration. In-tree alone: woodpecker mpg.hal, touchy, shuttle, xhc-hb04, and pico pendant.hal (rawcounts via ilowpass, s32 throughout). Motion's jog protocol is an exact per-cycle count delta (control.c:1066).

• iocontrol.0.tool-prep-number: axis_manualtoolchange.hal is pulled in by 50 in-tree inis, and smithy/924.hal nets it into classicladder s32 word logic on shipped commercial machines.

• Unsigned: hm2_modbus (in 2.9) maps raw device registers to pins, including 64-bit unsigned compounds (hal_pin_u64_newf, plus a u64 .offset tare doing modulo-2^64 subtraction). A totalizer register above 2^53 loses bits on a float pin; the range [2^63, 2^64) reads negative on s64. The pin is the user-facing register image, so "keep it driver-internal" does not apply.

• Bit patterns: hm2 raw.write-data and bitwise (u32 pins), plus lut5 (stepconf generates setp lut5.0.function 0x10000, a u32 param). On an integer pin, NaN and 2.5 are unrepresentable; today setp <int-pin> nan is rejected while setp <float-pin> nan succeeds, and (int32_t)NaN is 0x80000000 straight into an FPGA register. No driver checks isnan; the type is the guard.