Messages in this thread | | | Date | Mon, 8 Mar 1999 23:33:05 -0600 (CST) | From | Oliver Xymoron <> | Subject | Re: Linux/IA-64 byte order |
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On Mon, 8 Mar 1999, Richard B. Johnson wrote:
> Little/big endian is determined by hardware. It is not a software > issue. Of course one could make a compiler put instructions in any > order, the natural order will be the order in which instructions > are fetched by the CPU from memory. Even if memory fetches are > long-longs, you will have to use what the CPU expects.
Most RISC CPUs now have a mode flag that puts them in big or little endian mode, so this is no longer true. Some even have a bit in the instruction word which indicates whether to do a big-endian or little-endian load or store.
Why? I'm going to speculate that Windows NT required it (for exactly the same reason Linus demands it - for running x86 apps). Most of the current RISC families started getting off the ground while NT 3.1 was in development and everyone planned on having a port. The hardware to support it is pretty minimal.
-- "Love the dolphins," she advised him. "Write by W.A.S.T.E.."
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