On Wed, Aug 06, 2003 at 11:24:18AM -0400, Mark D Pace wrote: > I keep seeing references to big endian and little endian. I am going to > show off my ignorance here and ask - What does this mean? I do not know > what the term endian means.
>From the Jargon File: (http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/B/big-endian.html) big-endian: adj. [common; From Swift's Gulliver's Travels via the famous paper On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace by Danny Cohen, USC/ISI IEN 137, dated April 1, 1980] 1. Describes a computer architecture in which, within a given multi-byte numeric representation, the most significant byte has the lowest address (the word is stored big-end-first ). Most processors, including the IBM 370 family, the PDP-10, the Motorola microprocessor families, and most of the various RISC designs are big-endian. Big-endian byte order is also sometimes called network order. See little-endian, middle-endian, NUXI problem, swab. (Sense 2 doesn't apply here.) (http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/L/little-endian.html) little-endian: adj. Describes a computer architecture in which, within a given 16- or 32-bit word, bytes at lower addresses have lower significance (the word is stored little-end-first ). The PDP-11 and VAX families of computers and Intel microprocessors and a lot of communications and networking hardware are little-endian. See big-endian, middle-endian, NUXI problem. The term is sometimes used to describe the ordering of units other than bytes; most often, bits within a byte. (http://catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/M/middle-endian.html) middle-endian: adj. Not big-endian or little-endian. Used of perverse byte orders such as 3-4-1-2 or 2-1-4-3, occasionally found in the packed-decimal formats of minicomputer manufacturers who shall remain nameless. See NUXI problem. Non-US hackers use this term to describe the American mm/dd/yy style of writing dates (Europeans write little-endian dd/mm/yy, and Japanese use big-endian yy/mm/dd for Western dates).
