The author's presentation of the traditional explanation makes sense only if M is visualized as binary, while E remains decimal. But the reader coming to the s

The author's presentation of the traditional explanation makes sense only if M is visualized as binary, while E remains decimal. But the reader coming to the subject for the first time is in no position to guess this, and would need a clue like subscript notation: B_2, E_10. Traditional explanation done well: https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~tomf/notes/cps104/floating.html https://www.cs.cornell.edu/~tomf/notes/cps104/floating.html