title: Advantages and disadvantages of floating point and fixed point representations
body: <p>I have been trying for the last three days to understand the exact differences between floating and fixed point representations. I am confused reading the material and I'm unable to decide what is right and what is wrong. </p>
  
  <p>One of the problems is with the meaning of few technical terms like 'precision', 'mantissa', 'denormalised', 'underflows' etcetera. </p>
  
  <p>Can anyone give the differences with examples?</p>
  
  <p>The points I have been able to find out until now (and able to understand clearly) are as follows :-</p>
  
  <p>Floating point -<br>
  1. <strong>Advantage</strong>  Provides a very large range<br>
  2. <strong>Disadvantage</strong> Rounds off <em>large</em> numbers    </p>
  
  <p>Fixed point -<br>
  1. <strong>Advantage</strong> Numbers are represented <em>exactly</em>  (Used when 'money' is involved)<br>
  2. <strong>Disadvantage</strong> Provide a very limited range   </p>
  
  <p>But I know there are a lot more differences (Advantages and disadvantages mainly). Can anyone list them out with explanations?</p>