From Number Bases to Floating Point: How Computers Store Numbers
I first studied this material in a computer organization course several years ago. Returning to it today, I realized that I had never quite understood it. That is why I wrote this article. Let us begin with a question: how are numbers actually represented inside a computer? Bases and Place Value We are all familiar with decimal, because we are used to counting with ten digits. Computers, however, work with binary bits underneath. We therefore need a way to move freely between different representations of the same number. ...