Re: [SLUG] Endian-ness.

[Michael Lake <Mike.Lake@nospam.uts.edu.au>]

David Fisher wrote:
> Would some kind soul mind explaining what this Endian business is all about?
> I have seen frequent references to it on this list but not elsewhere.

Lets say we write a program to store the three decimal numbers; 19, 19
and 19
In the computers memory they are stored as binary numbers. 
19 decimal is 10011 binary ie 1x16 + 0x8 + 0x4 + 1x2 + 1x1 = sums to 19

On a little endian machine those same three numbers stored sequentially
in memory would be like so;
10011 10011 10011	ie the least significant bit is first.

On a big endian machine the same numbers would be like this in the
memory;
11001 11001 11001	ie the most significant bit is first.
 
There are advantages / disadvantages to both methods. Consult computer
science literature.

> I was not hitherto aware that Jonathan Swift was a Linux user, nor can I find
> any other reference to Unix in "Gulliver's Travels".

Yes the term was derived from the Little Endians who ate their eggs
little ends first vs the Big Endians who ate their eggs big end first.

PS. I hope the endianness of my explanation is around the right way.
 
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Lake
University of Technology, Sydney
Email: mailto:Mike.Lake@nospam.uts.edu.au Ph: 02 9514 1724 Fx: 02 9514 1628 
URL: http://www.science.uts.edu.au/~mikel
Linux enthusiast, active caver and interested in anything technical.
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