FWIW I had an analog wall-clock in the late-50's / early-60's that showed 4 as IIII - not IV. I cannot remember what its 9 was. Using letters as numerals prevented the Romans and Greeks etc. from inventing algebra. <grin> CP
On 17/06/2017 03:24, Clark Morris wrote: > [Default] On 16 Jun 2017 11:18:42 -0700, in bit.listserv.ibm-main > [email protected] (Jesse 1 Robinson) wrote: > >> TGIF. With due respect to the view that Indian (Hindi? Sanskrit?) via Arabic >> numerals were the progenitor of our modern big-endian bias, I'd like to >> point out that Roman numerals--remember them you old dudes?--are apparently >> big-endian. Lord knows who invented that convoluted system, but it persisted >> in academia and in commerce for centuries. > As I recall 9 is IX not VIIII and 90 is XC not LXXXX. Is anyone > energetic enough to verify this. I am not tonight. > > Clark Morris >> Friday off topic. I read somewhere that at the time of American independence >> circa 1776, it was de rigueur for an educated person to be able to do >> *arithmetic* in Roman numerals. You could not otherwise claim to be properly >> schooled. A footnote on the whimsy of stodgy education standards. >> >> . >> . >> J.O.Skip Robinson >> Southern California Edison Company >> Electric Dragon Team Paddler >> SHARE MVS Program Co-Manager >> 323-715-0595 Mobile >> 626-543-6132 Office ?=== NEW >> [email protected] >> >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On >> Behalf Of Paul Gilmartin >> Sent: Friday, June 16, 2017 10:56 AM >> To: [email protected] >> Subject: (External):Re: RFE? xlc compile option for C integers to be "Intel >> compat" or Little-Endian >> >> On Fri, 16 Jun 2017 16:43:38 +0100, David W Noon wrote: >>> ... >>> This is not the way computers do arithmetic. Adding, subtracting, etc., >>> are performed in register-sized chunks (except packed decimal) and the >>> valid sizes of those registers is determined by architecture. >>> >> I suspect programmed decimal arithmetic was a major motivation for >> little-endian. >> >>> In fact, on little-endian systems the numbers are put into big-endian >>> order when loaded into a register. Consequently, these machines do >>> arithmetic in big-endian. >>> >> Ummm... really? I believe IBM computers number bits in a register with >> 0 being the most significant bit; non-IBM computers with 0 being the least >> sighificant bit. I'd call that a bitwise little-endian. And it gives an >> easy summation formula for conversion to unsigned integers. >> >>> As someone who was programming DEC PDP-11s more than 40 years ago, I >>> can assure everybody that little-endian sucks. >>> >> But do the computers care? (And which was your first system? Did you feel >> profound relief when you discovered the alternative convention?) >> >> IIRC, PDP-11 provided for writing tapes little-endian, which was wrong for >> sharing numeric data with IBM systems, or big-endian, which was wrong for >> sharing text data. >> >> For those who remain unaware on a Friday: >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lilliput_and_Blefuscu#History_and_politics >> >> -- gil >> >> >> ---------------------------------------------------------------------- >> For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, >> send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > . > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
