From the course: C Programming for Embedded Applications

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Fixed-point math

Fixed-point math

- [Instructor] At this point, it's important to understand that floating-point numbers are not a silver bullet. They're just not adequate for every situation or application. Take banking for instance, did you know that you just can't add 100 million to one with 32-bit floats? Feel free to try it, just make sure you're using 32-bit floats. Now, this would mean that if you go to the bank and make a deposit for $1 into your account with a balance of 100 million, your balance will stay unchanged. Sure it's just a dollar, but if you made a 100 million consecutive deposits of $1 each, your balance would still remain unchanged. This is due to the fact that floats have a precision of about six decimal places, this is sometimes referred to as the big number eating the small number. So, now let's get to know fixed-point numbers with a comparison. At the left, we have floating-point numbers and some characteristics. And to…

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