From: ercolessi@uimrl7.mrl.uiuc.edu
Subject: Re: Format of unformatted files: does a standard exist?
Reply-To: ercolessi@uimrl7.mrl.uiuc.edu
Organization: Materials Research Lab
Date: Wed, 15 Apr 1992 01:06:12 GMT

In article <1992Apr14.151622.3700@e2big.mko.dec.com>,
lionel@quark.enet.dec.com (Steve Lionel) writes:
|> In article <1992Apr12.202004.25537@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, 
|> ercolessi@uimrl7.mrl.uiuc.edu  (Furio Ercolessi) writes:
|> >
|> |>Sure.  I was just wondering if vendors could agree on an
|> unofficial
|> |>"de facto" standard, within the limited but growing subset of
|> |>machines with IEEE arithmetics under a Unix or Unix-like operating
|> |>system.    [...]
|> 
|> They have.  The ACE (Advanced Computing Environment) initiative, a
|> multi-vendor
|> group, has agreed on little-endian byte addressing and IEEE floating,
|> the same 
|> as is implemented in all of the Intel chip-based PCs, DEC MIPS-based
|> |> workstations and forthcoming DEC Alpha-based systems.  I just read
|> in Digital 
|> News that MIPS has released its own ARC (one of two ACE-specified
|> architectures,
|> the other being the Intel x86 series) compliant workstation which
|> uses
|> little-endian byte ordering.   More will follow from various
|> vendors.

These are very good news, but ... who is in ACE?
I have found (thanks to the contributions of many people who
sent me email) that all these machines use or can use the BIG 
endian format (which I previously called 'Type A'):

   - IBM Risc/6000
   - Sun (Sparcstations, Sun 4)
   - Silicon Graphics (whole line)
   - Hewlett-Packard (at least Series 700)
   - Stardent
   - Digital DECStations, when compiling with -assume big_endian
                 (see Ken Cowan's posting for details)
   - Convex (C100, C200, with "IEEE floating point option/hardware" installed)

Now, it seems to me that this is a very satisfactory situation,
from the user point of view.  In fact, it is almost unbelievable
that such a level of agreement could be reached.
And, at this point, I would call this a "de facto standard".

And now ACE is pushing in the other direction (little endian)!!!!!
This looks like a war declaration, and we (users) are going
to be hit soon!  Why, oh why ?  What is the idea behind this?  
Why manufacturers of little endian machines cannot follow the 
brilliant Digital's solution of supporting both formats, leaving 
the choice to the user, and start instead the 'unformatted wars' ?

|> I think this is a big win for users, in that there will be common
|> data formats
|> between the millions of PCs in use today, workstations and larger
|> systems.

Yes: this is the user's dream!

Anyway, congratulations to Digital for putting this wonderful "anti-ACE"
option in their newest RISC-Ultrix Fortran compiler.
I have just finished to recompile all my Ultrix executables and now 
they share files with AIX and Irix.  Great!
furio

|> Steve Lionel                    lionel@quark.enet.dec.com
|> Languages Group
|> Digital Equipment Corporation
|> 110 Spit Brook Road
|> Nashua, NH 03062
|> 
--
Furio Ercolessi
Materials Research Laboratory           |   Intl School for Advanced Studies
Univ. of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign   |   Trieste, Italy
ercolessi@uimrl7.mrl.uiuc.edu           |   furio@sissa.it