Little-endian: Difference between revisions
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'''Little-endian''' is a term created by Danny Cohen (technically, he re-purposed it from Jonathan Swift's satire, "Gulliver's Travels", where it refers to the dispute over whether to start eating a boiled egg from the big end or the little end) for the different schemes for ordering | '''Little-endian''' is a term created by Danny Cohen (technically, he re-purposed it from Jonathan Swift's satire, "Gulliver's Travels", where it refers to the dispute over whether to start eating a boiled egg from the big end or the little end) for the different schemes for ordering and numbering [[bit]]s and [[byte]]s within larger entities. | ||
'Little-endian' refers to machines (like the [[Intel x86]]) which number the bits and bytes from the least significant (low-order) end. | 'Little-endian' refers to machines (like the [[Intel x86]]) which number the bits and bytes from the least significant (low-order) end. | ||
Some machines ( | Some machines (sometimes dubbed ''mixed-endian'') are not consistent; e.g. the [[PDP-11]], which is mostly little endian - for bits within bytes/[[word]]s, and bytes within words - but not words within long-words. | ||
==See also== | |||
* [[Big-endian]] | |||
==External links== | |||
* [https://www.rfc-editor.org/ien/ien137.txt On Holy Wars and a Plea For Peace] - Danny's note which introduced the terminology | |||
[[Category: Computer Basics]] | |||
Latest revision as of 12:25, 27 February 2024
Little-endian is a term created by Danny Cohen (technically, he re-purposed it from Jonathan Swift's satire, "Gulliver's Travels", where it refers to the dispute over whether to start eating a boiled egg from the big end or the little end) for the different schemes for ordering and numbering bits and bytes within larger entities.
'Little-endian' refers to machines (like the Intel x86) which number the bits and bytes from the least significant (low-order) end.
Some machines (sometimes dubbed mixed-endian) are not consistent; e.g. the PDP-11, which is mostly little endian - for bits within bytes/words, and bytes within words - but not words within long-words.
See also
External links
- On Holy Wars and a Plea For Peace - Danny's note which introduced the terminology
