Floating-point numbers (on the Amiga)

[Fred Cisin]

> I am trying (and failing) to learn how AMOS Basic (and Amiga's) store
> floating point numbers. Whilst it is clear that it uses Motorola Fast
> Floating Point (MFPP) I have been unable to get it to work based on an
> equation found online (the Amiga RKRM's all say to use the FPP
> functions in the maths libraries, and also confirm the layout - 24 bit
> mantissa, 1bit sign, 7bit exponent). Am I doing something wrong with
> my maths??

IF it is the same as IEEE single precision,
there is a sign bit,

and 23 bits to store a 24 bit mantissa, (normalization always forces the
highest bit on, so there is no need to store it),

and an 8 bit exponent (with 128 offset)


Zero, therefore, has to be stored as a special case.