In a typical computer, floating-point numbers are represented in the way described above, but with certain restrictions on $q$ and $m$ imposed by the available word length. In the machine, our number $x$ is represented as $$\begin{equation} x=(-1)^s\times {\mbox{mantissa}}\times 2^{{\mbox{exponent}}}, \tag{4} \end{equation}$$

where $s$ is the sign bit, and the exponent gives the available range. With a single-precision word, 32 bits, 8 bits would typically be reserved for the exponent, 1 bit for the sign and 23 for the mantissa.