Groups > alt.folklore.computers > #212511

Re: Where do byte orders come from

From	John Levine <johnl@taugh.com>
Newsgroups	alt.folklore.computers
Subject	Re: Where do byte orders come from
Date	2020-08-02 22:59 +0000
Organization	Taughannock Networks
Message-ID	<rg7ggb$2599$1@gal.iecc.com> (permalink)
References	<rff08h$1f2i$2@gal.iecc.com> <87ft95qsec.fsf@eder.anydns.info> <dc3eifl8fgpj8mgj89l4f0af7bqlg95tm7@4ax.com> <0529b080-3aee-493e-b4b4-d82bebb724abo@googlegroups.com>

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In article <0529b080-3aee-493e-b4b4-d82bebb724abo@googlegroups.com>,
Quadibloc  <jsavard@ecn.ab.ca> wrote:
>On Sunday, August 2, 2020 at 1:03:36 PM UTC-6, JimP wrote:
>
>> Doesn't Sumerian cuneiform change direction on each line ? Or was that
>> Egyptian hyroglpyhics ?
>
>Neither one. Egyptian hieroglyphics are usually written from right to left like 
>Hebrew, but they can occasionally be written the other way.
>
>Boustrophedon was used in writing Greek at a very early stage in the development 
>of the written form of the language, and that's about it.

I'm pretty sure that predates any stndards organization specifying charater sets,
placements, and approved colors of ink.

About 45 years ago we had an early Diablo daisywheel printer with a
very primitive interface that just took instructions to move the type
carriage left or right, move the platen up or down, and rotate the
wheel and strike a character. Someone built an interface to our PDP-11
out of about four chips, and I wrote a Unix driver to print ASCII text
on it. It would combine strings of white space and move directly to
the place to print the next character. Then I wrote a little user mode
program that flipped the order of every other line of text, adding
spaces and backspaces so it would come out at the right place when
printed. Then I printed stuff, voila, boustrophedon printing. It
wasn't all that much faster but it was way cool.

-- 
Regards,
John Levine, johnl@taugh.com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

Thread

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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