int e l 1.6 FLOATING POINT FORMAT MCS BASIC-52 stores all floating point numbers in a normalized packed BCD format with an offset binary exponent. The simplest way to demonstrate the floating point format is to use an example. If the number PI (3.1415926) was stored in location X, the following would appear in memory. LOCATION VALUE DESCRIPTION X 81H EXPONENT -- 81H = 10**1, 82H = 10**2, 80H = 10**0, 7FH = 10**-1 etc.
THE NUMBER ZERO IS REPRESENTED WITH A ZERO EXPONENT X-1 00H SIGN BIT -- 00H = POSITIVE, 01H = NEGATIVE OTHER BITS ARE USED AS TEMPS ONLY DURING A CALCULATION X-2 26H LEAST SIGNIFICANT TWO DIGITS X-3 59H NEXT LEAST SIGNIFICANT TWO DIGITS X-4 41H NEXT MOST SIGNIFICANT TWO DIGITS X-5 31H MOST SIGNIFICANT TWO DIGITS Because MCS BASIC-52 normalizes all numbers, the most significant digit is never a zero unless the number is zero. - 184 -