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Notes:
Just for context, I'd like to give you a comparison with another language almost as well-known as Python: it's called “Java”. Both Python and Java had support for binary floating point from their first releases (although Python was released several years earlier than Java).
In 1997, Java added the “BigDecimal” class, which provided fixed point decimals. These are much less powerful and complete than the floating point we're talking about here – basically just a list of digits with a decimal.
In 2004, Java retrofitted BigDecimal to work as floating point, and Python 2.4 came out with the decimal module. Both are based on Cowlishaw's spec. So I'd say that the two languages are really quite similar in their support for these features.