Xref: utzoo comp.arch:7890 comp.misc:4727 comp.lang.misc:2554 comp.protocols.misc:454
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ulysses!ggs
From: ggs@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com (Griff Smith)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.misc,comp.lang.misc,comp.protocols.misc
Subject: Re: "big endian" and "little endian" - first usage for computer
Summary: western chauvinism
Keywords: dump little-endian strings
Message-ID: <11113@ulysses.homer.nj.att.com>
Date: 17 Jan 89 15:34:26 GMT
References: <170@microsoft.UUCP> <4008@hubcap.UUCP> <482@babbage.acc.virginia.edu> <5703@cbmvax.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 25

In article <5703@cbmvax.UUCP>, jesup@cbmvax.UUCP (Randell Jesup) writes:
> 	Personally, that's a nice kludge to get around the fact that little-
> endian is "naturally" written right to left, bottom to top by most people.
> However, people don't read that way, certainly not text.

Where `people' are defined to be those who happen to be members of the
Western cultures that read left to right.  What does that make the others?

> 	I think little-endian is a long-standing joke played by hardware
> engineers of software writers.  :-)

Big-endian is a long-standing mistake imposed on us by merchants from the
Middle Ages who missed the point.  In transcribing the number system from
the Arabic, they should have had the sense to reverse the digits to compensate
for the strange Western custom of writing from left to right. ( :-), I suppose).

> -- 
> Randell Jesup, Commodore Engineering {uunet|rutgers|allegra}!cbmvax!jesup


-- 
Griff Smith	AT&T (Bell Laboratories), Murray Hill
Phone:		1-201-582-7736
UUCP:		{most AT&T sites}!ulysses!ggs
Internet:	ggs@ulysses.att.com