How can I instruct my compiler to use 8 bit bytes instead of 16 bit integers?
I actually think a better practice that avoids this architectural ambiguity is to include &lt;stdint.h&gt; then use declarative types like:


uint8_t for unsigned 8-bit integers
int8_t for signed 8-bit integers
uint16_t for unsigned 16-bit integers
uint32_t for unsigned 32-bit integers


and so on...