$ ruby --version
ruby 1.9.3p448 (2013-06-27 revision 41675) [x86_64-linux]
$ ruby -e 'p [0xfffffffffffffffff].pack("C")'
"\xFF"
$ ruby --version
jruby 1.7.10 (1.9.3p392) 2014-01-09 c4ecd6b on OpenJDK 64-Bit Server VM 1.7.0_51-b00 [linux-amd64]
$ ruby -e 'p [0xfffffffffffffffff].pack("C")'
RangeError: bignum too big to convert into `long'
pack at org/jruby/RubyArray.java:4129
(root) at -e:1