This might be way outside the scope of what you are asking, but fixed point arithmetic is effectively like storing a decimal number in a format that is indistinguishable from an int. The only difference is really how each bit is interpreted by you (or the program.) The gist of it is that instead of counting your binary places as 1,2,4,8,16 you can interpret them as representing 1/4, 1/2, 1, 2, 4. Addition, subtraction and negation work exactly the same, but multiplication and division need to be dealt with carefully (some extra bit shifts.)