title: Floating point conversion for 8-bit floating point numbers
body: <blockquote>
    <p>Consider the following 8-bit (<em>yes, 8-bit, not 8-byte</em>) floating point representation based on the IEEE floating point
        format. </p>
    
    <ol>
    <li><p>Format A:<br>
    There is one sign bit.<br>
    There are k=3 exponent bits.<br>
    There are n=4 fraction bits.  </p></li>
    <li><p>Format B:<br>
    There is one sign bit.<br>
    There are k=4 exponent bits.<br>
    There are n=3 fraction bits.  </p></li>
    </ol>
    
    <p>Below, you are given some bit patterns of pattern A. Your task is to find out the values of numbers given
        by format A and also convert them to the closest value in format B. </p>
  
  <pre><code>Format A                       Format B
    Bits             Value          Bits 
    1 010 1000 
    1 110 0000 
    0 101 1010 
    0 000 1001
  </code></pre>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>This is homework... I don't want the assignment done for me. I just want to learn on how to convert. Floating point gets me extremely confused.</p>
  
  <p>Can someone just please make up a "Format A" and show me how to get the value/convert step-by-step? </p>