nathan@vitec.vitec.us.com (Nathan Banks) (09/18/90)
We seem to encounter problems when trying to run in Big Endian mode on the i860. Even though Intel is a little endian company, I feel that it is a little too early to be jumping to conclusions at this time, but... Is anyone else out there having any success with the i860 in big endian mode? Thanks, Nathan Banks
bobeson@saturn.ucsc.edu (Robert Ellefson) (09/18/90)
In article <1484@vitec.UUCP> nathan@vitec.vitec.us.com (Nathan Banks) writes: >We seem to encounter problems when trying to run in Big Endian mode on >the i860. Even though Intel is a little endian company, I feel that it >is a little too early to be jumping to conclusions at this time, but... >Is anyone else out there having any success with the i860 in >big endian mode? > >Thanks, >Nathan Banks We had purchased a star860 development system from intel, in order to make an IBM 370 to i860 instruction translator (ahem). The system was not able to enter Big Endian mode, although the chip was supposed to work Big Endian. This was a design decision by the star860 developers. Your system may suffer a similar fate. -Bob Ellefson bobeson@spica.ucsc.edu
dlau@mipos2.intel.com (Dan Lau) (09/18/90)
In article <6966@darkstar.ucsc.edu> bobeson@saturn.ucsc.edu (Robert Ellefson) writes: >In article <1484@vitec.UUCP> nathan@vitec.vitec.us.com (Nathan Banks) writes: >>We seem to encounter problems when trying to run in Big Endian mode on > >We had purchased a star860 development system from intel, >The system was not able to enter Big Endian mode, although the chip >was supposed to work Big Endian. This was a design decision by >the star860 developers. Your system may suffer a similar fate. The Star860 development system software was set up for little endian mode execution. Intel can also provide big endian versions of the source to these tools (for a fee :-). Many people are using the i860 in big endian mode: HP, Sun, for example. Both SKY and Mercury also provide i860 add-in boards for the Sun and use big endian mode. Big endian compilers for the i860 are available from Metaware and Compass, other companies may also provide big endian support in the future. Maybe Nathan can elaborate on his "problems" a little more, so the rest of us can understand what it is that he is running into. Dan Lau