Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!bu-cs!purdue!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!bcase From: bcase@cup.portal.com (Brian bcase Case) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: "big endian" and "little endian" - first usage for computer Message-ID: <13115@cup.portal.com> Date: 2 Jan 89 19:23:09 GMT References: <2766@cbnews.ATT.COM> <10147@well.UUCP> <13045@cup.portal.com> <15209@mimsy.UUCP> Organization: The Portal System (TM) Lines: 7 >>Big endian has the significant advantage that, when properly aligned, >>character strings can be compared using the full width of the machine's >>ALU. >I think this particular difference makes little difference.... You might be right in the general case, but if your program uses, for example in C, the strcmp() function a lot, you'll notice the difference!