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From: ulmo@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Brad Allen)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: "big endian" and "little endian" - first usage for computers
Message-ID: <5883@saturn.ucsc.edu>
Date: 30 Dec 88 07:03:43 GMT
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Sender: usenet@saturn.ucsc.edu
Reply-To: ulmo@ssyx.ucsc.edu (Brad Allen)
Organization: none, and I supposedly represent my own self.
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>	Both representations are useful.  Are there any other respective
>advantages I've left out?

Agreed.  Well, I somewhat prefer low-order-bits-first, but really ultimately
don't care that much.  Someone said to me once that when doing bitmapped
graphics, big-to-small byte was better because you could read a whole long
word for 32 bits with the bits all being in order.  But, of course, I simply
told him that if the bits went from 0 to 31 in the first place, then one could
still use long words, and what's more, short words would be a bit easier.

So, as far as I know, the only advantage of highorderbits first so far is that
it's the same way most people read numbers.  Otherwise, there might be hardware
chip habits which might also make the above somewhat untrue ... but this is
somewhat hypothetical anyway.

(no important words were mentioned here.)