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Uploading a new patch (base256.diff).  This implements only
the string-> long (or int) conversion.  It adds support for
radix 256 (unsigned) or -256 (2's-complement signed) to the
int() and long() built-ins:
  int("\xFF\xFF\xFF", 256) -> 0xFFFFFF
  int("\xFF\xFF\xFF", -256) -> -1
  long(os.urandom(128), 256) -> 1024-bit integer

I left out the long -> string conversion.  If python adds a
bytes() type, then that conversion could be done as
bytes(long).  This patch has docs and tests.