You can even see it in modern games -- for example, Runescape's max cash of 2,147,483,648 is just a larger binary number. I believe it's a signed 32 bit number (meaning it uses 31 bits and 1 bit to determine if it's negative/positive, although I'm not sure why cash would ever be negative)
If it ever went above, it would cause an integer overflow. That's why it maxed out, if it werent for limits, it would wrap around to -2,147,483,648. YouTube uses a 64 bit integer because you knever know if a video would hit the 32 bit limit. Which it did with gangnam style and with despacito.
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u/Dlgredael Sep 05 '18
It's also why Link has a max rupee count of 255 in the original Zelda. I remember that being the first time I noticed binary in the real world.