An approach to teaching computer arithmetic

In this work we present an initiative to support teaching computer representation of numbers (both integer and floating point) as well as arithmetic in undergraduate courses in computer science and engineering. Our approach is based upon a set of carefully designed practical exercises which highlights the main properties and computational issues of the representation. In conjunction to the exercises, an auxiliary computer-based environment constitutes a valuable support for students to learn and understand the concepts involved. For integer representation, we have focused on the standard format, the well known 2's complement. For floating point representation, we have made use of an intermediate format as an introduction to the IEEE 754 standard. Such an approach could be included in an introductory course related to either computer structure, discrete mathematics or numerical methods.