Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!rpw3
From: rpw3@amdcad.AMD.COM (Rob Warnock)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: When is RISC not RISC?
Message-ID: <24361@amdcad.AMD.COM>
Date: 6 Feb 89 19:55:04 GMT
References: <4592@tekgvs.LABS.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: rpw3@amdcad.UUCP (Rob Warnock)
Organization: [Consultant] San Mateo, CA
Lines: 21

+---------------
| > Incidentally, wouldn't little-beginnian and big-beginnian be more accurate?
| Yeah, you're right. Guess it depends on which eye you look out of. :-)
+---------------

Well, the names "Big-Endian" and "Little-Endian" were borrowed by Danny Cohen
(in his classic paper "On Holy Wars And A Plea For Peace") from peoples of the
same names in one of Jonathan Swift's stories. Seems there was this "holy war"
between folks who like to eat their soft-boiled eggs from the "big end" and
those who preferred to eat from the "little end"...

So "accuracy" here should probably yield to classic usage, eh?  ;-}


Rob Warnock
Systems Architecture Consultant

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