Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!killer!texbell!uhnix1!sugar!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 'big endian' and 'little endian' - first usage for computer
Message-ID: <2951@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 31 Jan 89 17:51:48 GMT
References: <1840@lindy.Stanford.EDU>
Organization: Xenix Support
Lines: 10

[deleted discussion about using sign bit on binary data for search
 keys to distinguish them from strings in a bigendian database]

You can't assume all characters in the character set are positive. EBCDIC
and ISO latin 1 violate this assumption.
-- 
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Work: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180.   `-_-'
Home: bigtex!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.uu.net.                 'U`
Opinions may not represent the policies of FICC or the Xenix Support group.