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From: bcase@cup.portal.com (Brian bcase Case)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.misc,comp.lang.misc,comp.protocols.misc
Subject: Re: "big endian" and "little endian" - first usage for computer
Message-ID: <13069@cup.portal.com>
Date: 30 Dec 88 19:35:07 GMT
References: <2766@cbnews.ATT.COM> <10147@well.UUCP> <13045@cup.portal.com>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 12

>Big endian has the significant advantage that, when properly aligned,
>character strings can be compared using the full width of the machine's
>ALU.  For 32-bit machines, this means that two four-character (sub)strings
>can be compared at one time.  This is because the lowest address always
>points to the *first* character in the string.

Oops, I meant to say that the first character is always in a more
significant position than the second and succeeding characters.  This
corresponds to the convention that the first character in a string is
the most important in determining its position in an alphabetically
sorted list of strings.  Thus, after properly aligning, (sub)strings
can be compared as if they were simple (unsigned) integers.