Extended-precision
Extended-precision floating point numbers have the
following format on the Intel386(TM) microprocessor:
79 78 64 63 0
|-----|----------|----------------|
| SIGN| EXPONENT| FRACTION |
----------------------------------
^
binary point
For extended precision, bit 63 is always a 1, and the decimal
point comes after this bit. The other formats have an
implicit bit 1 before the fraction, as explained in
``Normalized numbers''.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Field Position Full name
---------------------------------------------------------------------
sign 79 sign bit (0==positive, 1==negative)
exponent 78-64 exponent (biased by 16,383)
fraction 63-0 fraction (bit 63=1, followed by the
decimal point. Bits 62-0 are the fraction.