Fixed Point?-Integral in Our Book

Since the discussion above considers only whole numbers, why is this the fixed point worksheet? Well, technically the binary point is to the right of the least significant bit (digit) in the representations shown above. Furthermore, you can express a subset of the rational numbers by moving the binary point to the left in any of the above representations. Note that in fixed point notations, the position of the binary point is assumed-that is, no space needs to be devoted to it because the number of places or digits to the right of the binary point is predefined-literally, fixed.

For example, a 32-bit fixed point number might have 8 bits representing the binary fractional part of the number, and the remaining 24 bits will be the integer part. The only difference from the previous expressions is that, like in base 10, the first position to the right of the binary point corresponds to $2^{-1}$; the next is $2^{-2}$ and so on, down to $2^{-8}$ for 8 bits. We don't see fixed point like this very often anymore, because with the exception of machines with fixed accuracy (such as cash registers, where the the smallest difference between values is 1 cent.

regardless, as long as you know where the binary point is, and it never moves, technically you are dealing with fixed point notation.