Tom Hughes wrote:
> In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Edwin Wiles <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Endianness:
> >
> > /d - default, whatever your system uses normally
> > /n - network
> > /b - big
> > /l - little
> > /v - vax
> >
> > (??vax is sufficiently different to require it's own?? Or is this to do
> > with bit order?)
>
> VAX is either big or little. I can't remember which off the top
> of my head.
>
> You may be getting confused here with the middle-endian system
> used by the PDP machines which goes 3412 or something rather than
> the 1234 or 4321 that most machines use.
Yes!!! And you are saying that VAX didn't inherit that when VAX replaced PDP? I
think I recall multiplatform code in a system I used to work on (but not that
part of) still claiming that VAX used middle-endian... perhaps VAX is little
endian, with compatibility flags settable to make it middle-endian?
I think middle-endian was approximately defined as: 16-bit words are big endian,
and anything bigger uses little endian order of big endian chunks of 16-bits. In
other words, middle-endian is little endian based on 16-bit chunks, but when
looked at via 8-bit chunks becomes different than little endian.
> Tom
>
> --
> Tom Hughes ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
> http://www.compton.nu/
> ...It now costs more to amuse a child than it once did to educate his father.
--
Glenn
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