Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-ncis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!spar!hunt
From: hunt@spar.SPAR.SLB.COM (Neil Hunt)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: "big endian" string comparison
Message-ID: <1120@spar.SPAR.SLB.COM>
Date: 5 Jan 89 16:52:38 GMT
References: <2766@cbnews.ATT.COM> <10147@well.UUCP> <13045@cup.portal.com> <6605@killer.DALLAS.TX.US> <15216@mimsy.UUCP>
Reply-To: hunt@spar.UUCP (Neil Hunt)
Organization: SPAR - Schlumberger Palo Alto Research
Lines: 14

Nobody has mentioned the argument used by some of the early
8 bit micro developers, who favoured little endian architectures.

This was because the low order offset for a long relative jump
is read first, and can be added to the PC in parallel with
the fetch of the high order offset.  The other order would be
more difficult because of the possible carry which might be
generated in the low order addition which needs to be incor-
porated in the high order addition.

Neil/.

	hunt@spar.slb.com
     ...{amdahl|decwrl|hplabs}!spar!hunt