Dan Karron@UCBVAX.BERKELEY.EDU (04/10/91)
The R2000 processors used in the IRIS-4D series workstations are configured BIG-ENDIAN. This means that sign bit at the lowest address byte. Big-Endian machines number the bytes of a word (size of an int) from 0 to 3. Byte 0 holds the sign and the most significant bits. For halfwords(size of a short) the bytes are numbered 0 to 1. Byte 0 holds the sign and MSB. I am quoting the Assembly Language Programmer's Guide, Page 1-1, version 1. I also wrote some code to import/export IEEE and Big Endian numbers to VAX Little Endian numbers, so if you need to know this, you probably can use my code. Now for the real important question: Where did the term Big-Little Endian come from ? What is the folklore behind this jargon ? Must be heap-bit-tail to tell! How! | karron@nyu.edu (e-mail alias ) Dan Karron, Research Associate | | Phone: 212 263 5210 Fax: 212 263 7190 New York University Medical Center | | 560 First Avenue Digital Pager <1> (212) 397 9330 | | New York, New York 10016 <2> 10896 <3> <your-number-here> |
"dwilliam@larry.ATL.GE.COM"@andrew.dnet.ge.com (04/10/91)
> > person asks for the folklore behind big/little endian terms. > The allusion is to Swift's _Gulliver's Travels_, in which two races of people fought wars over the question of which end of an egg should be broken to open it. Swift was satirizing the religious orthodoxy of his day. Extending this to today's computer marketplace is left as an exercise for the reader. Dan -- Dan Williams, Systems & Scientific Software, consultant to: GE Advanced Technology Labs | Internet: dwilliams@atl.ge.com 300 Route 38, Bldg. 145-1 | uucp: ...!mcnc!ge-rtp!atl.ge.com!dwilliams Moorestown, NJ 08057 | Voice: (609) 866-6220
guido@cwi.nl (Guido van Rossum) (04/11/91)
I once read this poem: A big Indian and a little Indian were walking down the street. The little Indian was the son of the big Indian; but the big Indian was not the father of the little Indian: You see the riddle is, if the little Indian was the son of the big Indian, but the big Indian was not the father of the little Indian, who was he? -- I'll give you two measures: His mother! (From Bernstein's song cycle "I Hate Music", sung by Teresa Stratas, as if by a child.) I wonder if this is a well-known poem or riddle, or whether Bernstein made it up. To me, "big Indian" and "big endian" sound very similar. --Guido van Rossum, CWI, Amsterdam <guido@cwi.nl> "Well I'm a plumber. I can't act."