Adding to the confusion to try and shead some light. You say the number you get back could be 751, which would equal 75.1. how is this sent? is it :
00000001 01110111, or is it
00000111 01010001?

The first being stright binary and the second being packed BCD I will assume the first. Now when you say you need a 32 bit, floating point answer, seems to me there must be some format to this. for instance, does the device you are sending it to expect the decimal to be in any special place? is it good with a 5 place decimal or does it assume 2 place? how does the receiving end expect to see the number? I mean 32 bit for tempreture is a bit much I think, could be 32767.32767 to -32767.32767 degrees! or something like that. Either way I don't want to live there!!!