Big endian / Little endian question

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.hardware,microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

Hello!

I was in the belive that all computers running Windows 2000 or Windows XP
were of the little endian type. Although I haven't found any big endian
computers, I think I'm wrong. Could someone give me examples of known
computer (processor) brands that are big endian and are able to run Windows
2000/XP.

Thank you guys (and girls).

/David.

 

[bar]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

The adjectives big-endian and little-endian refer to which bytes are most significant in multi-byte data types and describe the order in which a sequence of bytes is stored in a computer’s memory.

In a big-endian system, the most significant value in the sequence is stored at the lowest storage address (i.e., first). In a little-endian system, the least significant value in the sequence is stored first.

The terms big-endian and little-endian are derived from the Lilliputians of Gulliver's Travels, whose major political issue was whether soft-boiled eggs should be opened on the big side or the little side.

"Why does Intel uses ‘Little Endian’ addressing as supposed to ‘Big Endian’ ?" there are strong arguments that Little Endian is the "logical" way to do it.

To get the real answer: one may have to look at the original specifications provided by IBM back when it decided to make up a Personal Computer and have the major components subcontracted out side of their own plant etc. I don't have the answers.

In order to answer your second question: for one sytem architecture say an IBM z-Series processor with MVS [AKA mainframe & a big-endian system] to run the environment of the other say Windows XP would require an emmulator. It would not have native support for Windows.

IBM also manages to run Windows on Unix based [AIX] system by having Intel chips on 'blades'.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.hardware,microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

All existing Microsoft Windows systems (including WinCE on all platforms) work in little endian mode only.

--PA

"David Lindgren" <david.lindgren@hogia.se.REMOVE!> wrote in message news:%2393nJ7dJEHA.3120@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> Hello!
>
> I was in the belive that all computers running Windows 2000 or Windows XP
> were of the little endian type. Although I haven't found any big endian
> computers, I think I'm wrong. Could someone give me examples of known
> computer (processor) brands that are big endian and are able to run Windows
> 2000/XP.
>
> Thank you guys (and girls).
>
> /David.
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.hardware,microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

In article <e1QecJiJEHA.1000@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl>,
Pavel A. <pavel_a@geeklife.com> wrote:
>All existing Microsoft Windows systems (including WinCE on all platforms)
work in little endian mode only.
>
>--PA
>

>"David Lindgren" <david.lindgren@hogia.se.REMOVE!> wrote in message
>news:%2393nJ7dJEHA.3120@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl... > Hello! > > I was
>in the belive that all computers running Windows 2000 or Windows XP >
>were of the little endian type. Although I haven't found any big
>endian > computers, I think I'm wrong. Could someone give me examples
>of known > computer (processor) brands that are big endian and are
>able to run Windows > 2000/XP. > > Thank you guys (and girls). > >
>/David. >


There are several RISC chips that are dual-endian (MIPS, Alpha ?)
When running NT they use the little endian mode. Microsoft hasn't
built a version of NT any of these chips for years. All the
architecture-specific code is supposed to be in hal.dll.

OT: Starting a couple of months ago I see lots Usenet postings with
very long (effectivly unwrapped) which annoy my Unenst reader and make
me wrap any lines that exceed 71 chars. I assume some new GUI
newsreader software was just shipped set to default to soft
linebreaks. If you don't want your post reparagraphed as I did,
above, please adjust your software.

I've only been using usenet since about 1986. This is a new.

--
Al Dykes
-----------
adykes at p a n i x . c o m

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.win2000.hardware,microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware (More info?)

Hmm. Okey. Reason why I suspected otherwise is that one of our customers had
problems that I didn't experience on my machine. I thought I tracked it down
to to this line of code:
UnicodeEncoding UE = new UnicodeEncoding();

I read that the default constructor used the system default mode (litte/big
endian) and that there was another constructor with which you could specify
which mode to use. However if you say that all are little endian I suppose
this must not be the reason to his problems. I have not yet got any
information of what kind of computer he's got.

Is there anything else that can effect Unicode encoding? I'm thinking of the
systems current language settings etc. I'm also using the built in MD5Hash
function. Could that one behave different on different kinds of systems?

/David.


"Pavel A." <pavel_a@geeklife.com> skrev i meddelandet
news:e1QecJiJEHA.1000@TK2MSFTNGP11.phx.gbl...
> All existing Microsoft Windows systems (including WinCE on all platforms)
work in little endian mode only.
>
> --PA
>
> "David Lindgren" <david.lindgren@hogia.se.REMOVE!> wrote in message
news:%2393nJ7dJEHA.3120@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> > Hello!
> >
> > I was in the belive that all computers running Windows 2000 or Windows
XP
> > were of the little endian type. Although I haven't found any big endian
> > computers, I think I'm wrong. Could someone give me examples of known
> > computer (processor) brands that are big endian and are able to run
Windows
> > 2000/XP.
> >
> > Thank you guys (and girls).
> >
> > /David.
> >
> >
>
>