Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.3 alpha 4/15/85; site spectrix.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!spectrix!clewis
From: clewis@spectrix.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m68k
Subject: Re: Byte ordering, and pros/cons
Message-ID: <204@spectrix.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 27-Nov-86 15:15:36 EST
Article-I.D.: spectrix.204
Posted: Thu Nov 27 15:15:36 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 27-Nov-86 17:49:34 EST
References: <1271@ihwpt.UUCP>
Reply-To: clewis@spectrix.UUCP (Chris Lewis)
Distribution: net
Organization: Spectrix Microsystems Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 27

In article <1271@ihwpt.UUCP> knudsen@ihwpt.UUCP (mike knudsen) writes:

>Motorola's ordering makes for slower arithmetic, since
>you have to go back and fix the carries afterwards.

Huh?  Surely you're not implying that arithmetic in a Motorola CPU (or
any other CPU with the same ordering - eg: Pyramids) is done byte at a time
upwards in memory?  Once a value is in a register, it don't make no never-mind 
whether the carry wires go "right" or "left".  Further, in software extended
precision arithmetic (ala pseudo-registers in RAM), you add right-to-left
(high to low memory) just as humans do with pencil and paper.  No performance 
differences at all (though, I'll admit the occasional intellectual confusion
about where the durn pointers are supposed to start from, as opposed to
where they end!).

The only reason why I dislike Intel ordering is that it's hard to read hex 
dumps.  And split octal.

The one I really loved-to-hate is:
	byte2:byte3:byte0:byte1
(longs on UNIX PDP11's - the "NUXI Problem" - we all have our quirks)
-- 
Chris Lewis
Spectrix Microsystems Inc,
UUCP: {utzoo|utcs|yetti|genat|seismo}!mnetor!spectrix!clewis
ARPA: mnetor!spectrix!clewis@seismo.css.gov
Phone: (416)-474-1955