3 ms·

It's done so that the bits will compare the same way whether treated as float or int. (modulo NaNs and stuff)

• nhaehnle 8y ago
  That is only true for non-negative floating point numbers. It's still useful though. Interestingly, posits as originally proposed do have this property (except for infinity).
  • garmaine 8y ago
    Would have been nice if IEEE stored the complement sign.