"Iain Hibbert" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Clarence Verge wrote:

>> What do you mean by "small endian m over c ?

> well, thats a big question - big endian and small endian (m/c is machine
> code) architectures hold numbers in memory in different ways. consider
> that you have a long word held in memory at location 0x100

> 0000 0100:  45 2a 3f 00

> now on big-end architecture (Motorola, ..) that number has the value of
> 452a3f00 but on small-end architecture (Intel) then it is something
> different because the numbers go backwards (so its 003f2a45?). in the
> assembler language it looks similarly strange to me,

I would NEVER have guessed that was what you were talking about.
I thought you had a problem with the CRLF sequence I "ended" my
string with but the "m/c" didn't make sense.  Still doesn't. ;-)

Talking about "big-end" architecture is also a bit weird to me as
you are really referring to the normal or "intuitive" number format
instead of the one used by the pipe-smokers at Intel.
Actually it was the order in which they chose to load their internal
registers that dictates the byte order in memory. I believe so-called
"Reverse-Polish" notation was in vogue about then - maybe this had
something to do with it.

When you speak or write about size or money for instance, it's pretty
universal to say 6 ft 2 in or $1152 50 cents (puts the Most Significant
attribute first i.e. in the Most Significant position) instead of like:
$52+11Hundreds and 50 cents.

So I agree with you, I just didn't understand the arithmetical abbrev.

I also use the MSD first format for dates and times.

-  Clarence Verge.
-- Using Arachne 1.66 on DSL.

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