There is a proposal about "unum" or "posit" number system. They give more precision for small numbers (small meaning smaller than about 10^70, for 64bit numbers), less precision for huge numbers, and an overall larger range, than the floating point system.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unum_(number_format)

http://www.johngustafson.net/pdfs/BeatingFloatingPoint.pdf

(They are definitely not any easier to understand than the floating point system, though.)