How does exponent bias make comparison easier
<p>I'm reading <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exponent_bias" rel="nofollow">this</a> article about <code>exponent bias</code> in floating point numbers and it says the following:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>n IEEE 754 floating point numbers, the exponent is biased in the
  engineering sense of the word – the value stored is offset from the
  actual value by the exponent bias. Biasing is done because exponents
  have to be signed values in order to be able to represent both tiny
  and huge values, but two's complement, the usual representation for
  signed values, would make <strong>comparison</strong> harder. To solve this problem the
  exponent is biased before being stored, by adjusting its value to put
  it within an unsigned range suitable for <strong>comparison</strong>. By arranging the
  fields so that the sign bit is in the most significant bit position,
  the biased exponent in the middle, then the mantissa in the least
  significant bits, the resulting value will be ordered properly,
  whether it's interpreted as a floating point or integer value. This
  <strong>allows high speed comparisons</strong> of floating point numbers using fixed
  point hardware.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I've also found this explanation from wikipedia's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_binary" rel="nofollow">article</a> about offset binary:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>This has the consequence that the "zero" value is represented by a 1
  in the most significant bit and zero in all other bits, and in general
  the effect is conveniently the same as using two's complement except
  that the most significant bit is inverted. It also has the consequence
  that <strong>in a logical comparison operation</strong>, one gets the same result as
  with a two's complement numerical comparison operation, whereas, in
  two's complement notation a logical comparison will agree with two's
  complement numerical comparison operation if and only if the numbers
  being compared have the same sign. Otherwise the sense of the
  comparison will be inverted, with all negative values being taken as
  being larger than all positive values.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>I don't really understand what kind of comparison they are talking about here. Can someone please explain using a simple example?</p>