
Appendix C
Numeric Representations
I
N the digital domain, a given number may be stored and used in a number of different
representations. A number may be exactly representable in one form, but not in others.
How the number is represented will affect the accuracy of calculations, the memory and bus
bandwidth requirements, and the speed of calculations that can be attained.
C.1 Endianness
Typically, computer memories are addressable in bytes. If a data element is larger than
one byte, then a decision must be made as to how the individual bytes of the data element
are to be stored in memory. Given a 32-bit (4 byte) data element with hexadecimal value
12345678h, ...