Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!steinmetz!davidsen
From: davidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Standard Un*x H/W architecture (was: MAC 88000)
Message-ID: <11565@steinmetz.ge.com>
Date: 19 Jul 88 14:29:23 GMT
References: <261@hodge.UUCP> <370STORKEL@RICE> <607@riddle.UUCP> <11783@ames.arc.nasa.gov> <980@garth.UUCP> <11956@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: General Electric CRD, Schenectady, NY
Lines: 24

In article <11956@ames.arc.nasa.gov> lamaster@ames.arc.nasa.gov.UUCP (Hugh LaMaster) writes:

| Glad you asked.  The reason that you need a standard is because "The network 
| is the computer."  IF your network really functions that way, and, IF you
| have large amounts of binary data that moves between machines (HINTS:
| graphics, flow fields, etc.), THEN you have to have a binary data standard.
| The inconvenience of the standard being "wrong" in some cases is greatly
| outweighed by all the conveniences and efficiencies.  

  I faced this when I was calculating some data on a variety of machines
and reading them all on one machine. I decided that 32 bit 2's
complement was the most common, so I devised a simple set of routines
which generate and read that format on any machine.

  For the same of efficiency I used compile flags for TWOCOMP (false for
1's comp machines), BITS (assumed 32, set if greater), and LSB (set if
output must be forced to/from LSB order.

  Since the computation was about 5000 times the conversion, I couldn't
see the overhead in the noise.
-- 
	bill davidsen		(wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
  {uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me