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These numbers are stored internally in a format equivalent to scientific notation, typically in binary but sometimes in decimal. Because floating-point numbers have limited precision, only a subset of real or rational numbers are exactly representable; other numbers can be represented only approximately.
Some real numbers have two infinite decimal representations. For example, the number 1 may be equally represented by 1.000... as by 0.999... (where the infinite sequences of trailing 0's or 9's, respectively, are represented by "..."). Conventionally, the decimal representation without trailing 9's is preferred.
E.g., in 1001 0011, each group of four bits may represent a decimal digit (in this example 9 and 3, so the eight bits combined represent decimal 93). The weights associated with these 8 positions are 80, 40, 20, 10, 8, 4, 2 and 1. Uniqueness is ensured by requiring that, in each group of four bits, if the first bit is 1, the next two must be 00.
With 4 bits, it is possible to create 16 different values. All single-digit hexadecimal numbers can be written with four bits. Binary-coded decimal is a digital encoding method for numbers using decimal notation, with each decimal digit represented by four bits.
Thus only 23 fraction bits of the significand appear in the memory format, but the total precision is 24 bits (equivalent to log 10 (2 24) ≈ 7.225 decimal digits) for normal values; subnormals have gracefully degrading precision down to 1 bit for the smallest non-zero value. The bits are laid out as follows:
The base-2 numeral system is a positional notation with a radix of 2.Each digit is referred to as a bit, or binary digit.Because of its straightforward implementation in digital electronic circuitry using logic gates, the binary system is used by almost all modern computers and computer-based devices, as a preferred system of use, over various other human techniques of communication, because ...
Technically, binary-coded decimal describes the encoding of decimal numbers where each decimal digit is represented by a fixed number of bits, usually four. With the introduction of the IBM card in 1928, IBM created a code [a] capable of representing alphanumeric information, [2] later adopted by other manufacturers.
A fixed-point data type uses the same, implied, denominator for all numbers. The denominator is usually a power of two.For example, in a hypothetical fixed-point system that uses the denominator 65,536 (2 16), the hexadecimal number 0x12345678 (0x1234.5678 with sixteen fractional bits to the right of the assumed radix point) means 0x12345678/65536 or 305419896/65536, 4660 + the fractional ...