In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Glenn Linderman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Tom Hughes wrote:
>
> > 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?
Definately. I forgot to check the VAXen at work today but I know
for a fact that they aren't middle endian as our code base has no
support for that.
> 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.
>From /usr/include/endian.h on my linux box:
#define __LITTLE_ENDIAN 1234
#define __BIG_ENDIAN 4321
#define __PDP_ENDIAN 3412
Basically PDP or middle endian is low byte first within each word
but high word first in the overall longword.
Tom
--
Tom Hughes ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
http://www.compton.nu/
...Never insult an alligator until you have crossed the river.
