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Groups > alt.folklore.computers > #212317
| From | Radey Shouman <shouman@comcast.net> |
|---|---|
| Newsgroups | alt.folklore.computers |
| Subject | Re: Where do byte orders come from |
| Date | 2020-07-24 14:08 -0400 |
| Organization | None of the above |
| Message-ID | <87r1t0kcq2.fsf@mothra.home> (permalink) |
| References | (2 earlier) <349959d1-ed01-4050-b252-e4aa0aeefb11o@googlegroups.com> <0972e4a9-2307-449f-8d23-9ff404af98b3o@googlegroups.com> <rff08h$1f2i$2@gal.iecc.com> <rff26m$d9g$1@dont-email.me> <1780532797.617302395.256016.peter_flass-yahoo.com@news.eternal-september.org> |
Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> writes: > Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> wrote: >> On 24/07/2020 16:54, John Levine wrote: >>> In article <0972e4a9-2307-449f-8d23-9ff404af98b3o@googlegroups.com>, >>> Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote: >>>> While this page doesn't explain when the decision to include >>>> little-endian was >>>> made, it does name the originator of the design for the PDP-11: Harold >>>> McFarland. >>>> >>>> https://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Electronic/PDP-11.html >>> >>> I have been trying for many years to find out why DEC used a >>> little-endian byte order in the PDP-11 rather than the big-endian that >>> all then-existing byte addressable machine used. >>> >>> So far nobody has 'fessed up, although lots of people have sent along >>> uninformed speculation. I know lots of reasons that DEC might have >>> chosen little-endian, but I don't know why they actually did. >>> >>> >>> >> >> But Little Endian is the obvious and logical approach, >> otherwise when dealing with multi precision you have to fart >> about to get to the least significant byte when presented >> with the address of the variable in memory. >> >> The only justification for Big Endian seems to come from >> lazy programmers who need their hands held and nose >> wiped when looking at core dumps. >> > > No, big-endian is the logical approach for any machine bigger that an 8008, > since words are operated on, and brought into the ALU, as a unit. > Big-endian is the way people think of numbers, otherwise you’d write > amounts like 00.000,1$ for a thousand dollars. When writing Arabic* that's exactly how it's done. That is, the digit order is the same as it is in Latin script, which is opposite the letter order for words. Although "arabic numerals" is perhaps a misattribution it does seem that that is whence they were adopted by Europeans. It seems they just got the endianness wrong -- to be consistent they should have reversed the order. Least significant digit first is also exactly how numbers are written when they are being calculated by hand, which was the point of zero-based notation in the first place. * I would guess this is true of other languages using Arabic script, like Farsi and Urdu. No idea about Hebrew.
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Re: Where do byte orders come from Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-07-24 03:51 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-07-24 03:54 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-07-24 04:00 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-07-24 15:54 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-07-24 09:23 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> - 2020-07-24 17:28 +0100
Re: Where do byte orders come from Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-07-24 09:56 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Radey Shouman <shouman@comcast.net> - 2020-07-24 14:08 -0400
Re: Where do byte orders come from robin.vowels@gmail.com - 2020-07-24 17:54 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-07-25 01:57 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> - 2020-07-25 11:57 +0100
Re: Where do byte orders come from John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-07-25 17:23 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-07-25 11:39 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-07-25 14:43 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Bob Eager <news0073@eager.cx> - 2020-07-25 22:21 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-07-25 22:49 +0000
Re: Where does PDP-11 floating point come from John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-07-25 22:34 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from Radey Shouman <shouman@comcast.net> - 2020-07-25 14:38 -0400
Re: Where do byte orders come from Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-07-25 11:42 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Radey Shouman <shouman@comcast.net> - 2020-07-26 17:11 -0400
Re: Where do byte orders come from Radey Shouman <shouman@comcast.net> - 2020-07-26 17:13 -0400
Re: Where do byte orders come from Radey Shouman <shouman@comcast.net> - 2020-07-26 17:15 -0400
Re: Where do byte orders come from Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-07-26 16:22 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-07-27 06:35 +0100
Re: Where do byte orders come from Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-07-27 11:42 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2020-07-27 13:54 -0500
Re: Where do byte orders come from Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-07-27 00:37 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-07-27 09:05 +0100
Re: Where do byte orders come from "Kerr-Mudd,John" <notsaying@127.0.0.1> - 2020-07-27 11:27 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2020-07-27 10:27 -0500
Re: Where do byte orders come from Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2020-07-27 20:45 -0400
Re: Where do byte orders come from JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> - 2020-07-28 09:24 -0500
Re: Where do byte orders come from Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2020-07-28 17:30 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from JimP <chucktheouch@gmail.com> - 2020-07-28 15:56 -0500
Re: Where do byte orders come from Andy Walker <anw@cuboid.co.uk> - 2020-07-27 22:34 +0100
Re: Where do byte orders come from Andreas Eder <a_eder_muc@web.de> - 2020-08-02 12:00 +0200
Re: Where do byte orders come from JimP <chucktheouch@gmail.com> - 2020-08-02 14:02 -0500
Re: Where do byte orders come from Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-08-02 15:03 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-08-02 22:59 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from Thomas Koenig <tkoenig@netcologne.de> - 2020-08-03 06:57 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from maus <maus@dmaus.org> - 2020-08-08 22:21 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2020-08-09 16:50 -0400
Re: Where do byte orders come from maus <maus@dmaus.org> - 2020-08-10 23:07 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-08-10 19:14 -0400
Re: How did byte order get to horses? Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-08-10 20:39 -0400
Re: How did byte order get to horses? J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-08-10 20:51 -0400
Re: How did byte order get to horses? Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-08-10 22:38 -0400
Re: How did byte order get to horses? J. Clarke <jclarke.873638@gmail.com> - 2020-08-10 22:50 -0400
Re: How did byte order get to horses? robin.vowels@gmail.com - 2020-08-10 20:35 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2020-08-11 03:42 -0300
Re: Where do byte orders come from Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-08-03 07:45 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from JimP <chucktheouch@gmail.com> - 2020-08-03 13:45 -0500
Re: Where do byte orders come from Rich Alderson <news@alderson.users.panix.com> - 2020-08-06 23:47 -0400
Re: Where do byte orders come from Charlie Gibbs <cgibbs@kltpzyxm.invalid> - 2020-08-02 21:58 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-08-02 15:04 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-07-25 14:43 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-07-25 22:35 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from Joe Pfeiffer <pfeiffer@cs.nmsu.edu> - 2020-07-25 16:54 -0600
Re: Where do byte orders come from Gareth Evans <headstone255@yahoo.com> - 2020-07-26 09:43 +0100
Re: Where do byte orders come from Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-07-26 05:54 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-07-25 02:03 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-07-25 10:54 +0100
Re: Where do byte orders come from John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-07-25 17:25 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-07-24 10:32 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Peter Flass <peter_flass@yahoo.com> - 2020-07-24 11:45 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from scott@slp53.sl.home (Scott Lurndal) - 2020-07-24 19:32 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from Richard Milward <rsmilward@gmail.com> - 2020-10-07 12:45 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-07-24 20:54 +0100
Re: Where do byte orders come from Quadibloc <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> - 2020-07-25 01:55 -0700
Re: Where do byte orders come from Dan Espen <dan1espen@gmail.com> - 2020-07-24 16:40 -0400
Re: Where do byte orders come from John Levine <johnl@taugh.com> - 2020-07-24 19:30 +0000
Re: Where do byte orders come from Ahem A Rivet's Shot <steveo@eircom.net> - 2020-07-24 21:06 +0100
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