SystemVerilog has two conversion functions related to the new shortreal type: $bitstoshortreal & $shortrealtobits.
Some simulators support shortreal but don’t implement these functions. I made some simple implementations as regular functions. You can find them here: https://github.com/muzafferkal/shortreal

Again this comes with no support. If you find them useful please send a short email. If you find/fix any issues, please send a longer email 🙂

-K