The _MAX and _MIN, along with CHAR_BIT, was defined for C89 (the first standard for C) 37 years ago, so it was possible to choose the appropriate type. I recall using the C preprocessor to define fixed (or at least, minimum) types for needed values:

    #include <limits.h>
    #if INT_MIN == 32767 && INT_MIN >= 2147483647L
    # error too small
    #else
    # error just right
    #endif

It was C99 (27 years ago) where we got the fixed sized integers. So how do you define "relatively" here?