Differences between version 12 and previous revision of BigEndian.
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| Newer page: | version 12 | Last edited on Thursday, February 24, 2005 1:02:23 pm | by JohnMcPherson | Revert |
| Older page: | version 11 | Last edited on Thursday, February 24, 2005 4:32:48 am | by HubertFröhlich | Revert |
@@ -1,20 +1,19 @@
-Big [Endian] is where you send/store the number 0x01020304 as "01 02 03 04". This was traditionally used for larger machines, and since larger machines had network connectivity, NetworkByteOrder has been traditionally BigEndian. [1]
+Big [Endian] is where you send/store the number 0x01020304 as "01 02 03 04". This was traditionally used for larger machines, and since larger machines had network connectivity, NetworkByteOrder has been traditionally BigEndian.
+
+Big and Little Endian are a reference to the book "Gullivers Travels", where a tribe of tiny people divide themselves into two factions over which end they should cut their eggs open at - the big end, or the little end.
English and most European languages are traditionally BigEndian: we write numbers "1234" when we mean "one thousand, two hundred and thirty four". By contrast, Semitic languages such as Arabic and Hebrew are LittleEndian -- despite the fact that the digits are written in the same order -- because those languages are read right-to-left. So "1234" in Arabic is STILL "one thousand, two hundred and thirty four", it's just read out in reverse order.
Funny phenomena in different everyday's languages:
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* "twenty-one" in English is BigEndian.
- * "einundzwanzig" in German means "one-and-twenty" and is LittleEndian.
- * However, this German phenomenon holds only for tens and ones, not for hundreds: "dreihunderteinundzwanzig" means "three-hundred-and-one-and-twenty" and mixes both Endians!!
-
-Most [SiliconGraphicsIndy]'s are BigEndian
.
+* "twenty-one" in English is BigEndian.
+* "einundzwanzig" in German means "one-and-twenty" and is LittleEndian.
+* However, this German phenomenon holds only for tens and ones, not for hundreds: "dreihunderteinundzwanzig" means "three-hundred-and-one-and-twenty" and mixes both Endians!!
+* the French word for "eighty" is "quatre-vingt", which literally means "4 twenty"
.
What is "little endian" and "big endian" in computer CPUs? See [Endian].
Compare LittleEndian.
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-[1] Big and Little Endian are a reference to the book "Gullivers Travels", where a tribe of tiny people divide themselves into two factions over which end they should cut their eggs open at - the big end, or the little end.
