Vizard output signals/voltages?

[JRichizzle]

I've installed the opensource module for communicating through the serial port. Connected to the serial port, I have a numeric keypad. For any number I press, when I issue a command to read the port (e.g., "port.read()") a series of the following kind of data are shown:

\x80

Data encoded like this are called a "two's complement little-endian binary string"

By using the Python module "pickle," this data can be decoded into the following:

-128L

...which itself is encoded and is called a "long."

Have you ever dealt with this kind of encoded data? ...and decoding of said data? If not, can you refer me to a helpful resource ?