Number Representations in Computer Hardware, Explained

[ma3mool]

Welcome to a most fundamental area of computer design: how numbers are represented in hardware! We know that modern computers use and are very efficient at using binary, but wasn't always the case.

Permalink to review.

https://www.techspot.com/article/2630-number-representation-in-hardware/

 

[m3tavision]

Thank you for this wonderful article...

We use to play number games in College... and leave binary messages on door boards..!

 

[madboyv1]

This was a great primer and a good read.

 

[kira setsu]

I'm not good enough at math to understand much but it was a very interesting read.

 

[Bamda]

This is an awesome article. Thanks for giving us a refresher on the magic of numbers in Computer Hardware.

 

[Hodor]

Excellent article.

 

[AdamNovagen]

This is the kind of article that got me on TS in the first place. Shame they turned out to only make up like 1 out of every 40 or 50, but I'm nevertheless grateful for this quality content.

 

[Tetr1s]

I had to read through this article twice to make sure I was retaining the information correctly lmao

 

[bl4C3y3]

Great article, thx a lot !

 

[John Staerck]

A very interesting article. Although for me it didn't really explain the need for the bias in the exponent field of floating point representations.

 

[ma3mool]

A very interesting article. Although for me it didn't really explain the need for the bias in the exponent field of floating point representations.

Excellent question. The short answer is that the bias allows you to get both positive and negative exponent values. So, if you want to get 2^-3, the bias allows you to encode it in a very straightforward way, by using the 8-bits for 124.

The longer answer is that it has to do with 2's complements, which isn't discussed here at all. It turns out that using a bias just makes life easier for the hardware, then having to interpret a 2's complement number and figure out if it is positive or negative.

 

[Random Commenter]

Good read, thanks.

One thing: it's a fundamental tenet, not tenant