Little/Big-Endian the most stupid term ever conceived. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 12:01:23 pm
content: This has always bugged me as one of the most irritating, bugged, invalid and stupid terminology in common use.Bigendian, littleendian.WHICH "END" are your referring to, it has TWO?It's a complete miss-statement. An invalid logical construct. Exception: "END" is not defined.All "Little endian" tell you is that one of it's 'ends' is little. All "Big endian" tell you is that one of it's 'ends' is big.Nothing tells you which "end".If you were to layman it and say, "Well the number/bit-field has a beginning and an endif you read left to right.... so it's the "furthest right".It's not.The end they are referring to is the start, the beginning the left most digit.... or is it?

author: woody
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 12:34:09 pm
content: Yeah, I understand it upsets you.I have the same with the term 'word'. I mean, you first have a bit, then a nibble, then you take a byte and then when you expect a 'meal' you get a word.All very confusing 🤔

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 12:55:00 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on May 28, 2025, 12:01:23 pmThe two terms do after all date from 1726, and applying them to computers was an in-joke in the first place.But it is really very simple, with the same meaning for describing bits in a register or bytes in memory.When you start from bit/byte 0 and go to 1, 2, 3 ... are you seeing the most significant (big) or least significant (little) bits or bytes first?e.g. take the number 0x1234.In a register:Code:Big endian+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+| 0| 0| 0| 1| 0| 0| 1| 0| 0| 0| 1| 1| 0| 1| 0| 0|+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15Little Endian:+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+| 0| 0| 0| 1| 0| 0| 1| 0| 0| 0| 1| 1| 0| 1| 0| 0|+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0In memory:Code:Big endian0: 0x121: 0x34Little endian0: 0x341: 0x12IBM quite consistently uses big-endian in both registers and memory, on both S/360 and POWER.Modern practice tends to be to use little-endian in both registers and memory, and this extends back to DEC machines including PDP-11 and VAX.Some cursed machines use little-endian in registers but big-endian in memory e.g. 68000Simples.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 01:04:55 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on May 28, 2025, 12:01:23 pmThat's wahy in myC, the endian operator is defined as (source, target)[]={ BE_BE, BE_LE, LE_BE, LE_LE };Even if actually only BE_LE() and LE_BE() do byte swapping.But "endianness" is a property of an object.e.g. of the local platform, and of the peripheral to which it interfaces.e.g. of the local platform, and of the "disk partition" scheme (mac-part was only for PPC/BE)So it is defined at only one end.Then it is the language that takes care of the interfacing.That's my way of handling it.Unlike "classic C", where it is up to the programmer to take care of it.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 01:06:42 pm
content: It's helpful to know when doing Assembly and indirect addressing, i.e., incrementing or decrementing a register location. For me, it is a way to remember which to do, because I try to be consistent. And of course, it does date from the Gulliver's Travels.BTW, when you crack an egg, do you do the big end or small end? I find it makes a difference when peeling a hard-boiled egg. I have no idea what C does.

author: kwass
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 01:07:17 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 28, 2025, 12:55:00 pmYes indeed. The originator of that phrase, Jonathan Swift, coined a bunch of words and phrases that have come into modern use (in the English speaking world) in one of his great works, Gulliver's Travels.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 01:15:16 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 28, 2025, 12:55:00 pmThe funny thing is that the R3000 used by Sony for PlayStation can run in BE or LE mode, depending on the configuration detected at bootstrap.You just need to desolder a pin, add a pull-up resistor. Nothing difficult.The same goes for POWER8 and 9. The endianess is set by the first 32bit-word fetched from the flash, they come with LE defaults, and all firmware is LE, but you can reprogram the firmware to make them BE.(which, is a useful thing to do, because this way they are compatitible with PowerMac-G5, which are PPC64/BE)The same goes for MIPS evaluation boards. For example, my Atlas, Algo and IDT boards have a physical dip-switch to set the CPU endianess.Unfortunately, you can't change the endianess of the Ethernet network, nor the bus.

author: wilfred
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 01:16:26 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 28, 2025, 12:55:00 pmIt came from Jonathan Swifts book Gulliver's Travels and was referring to the argument between two groups about which end of a boiled egg should be cracked. There were the big-endians and the little-endians. It is actually, in my opinion, one of the best appropriations of a cultural reference and entirely serves the purpose of transferring to the argument over which is better in computing. In both contexts you have to choose one and it is mostly arbitrary.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 01:25:20 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 28, 2025, 12:55:00 pmNah. Like USB cables it can only go up one way.If it doesn't work, try the other way.It's far better than remembering which end. This is exactly what I do with logic analysers etc. In code it's, usually, either abstracted into "you dont need to know" or plain as day in front of you. The "middle ground" is firmware and it's normally very clear in the datasheet even to the point of showing diagrams like you just did, to not rely on those terms. "MSB First". is much better.Big endian+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+| 0| 0| 0| 1| 0| 0| 1| 0| 0| 0| 1| 1| 0| 1| 0| 0|+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15Little Endian:+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+| 0| 0| 0| 1| 0| 0| 1| 0| 0| 0| 1| 1| 0| 1| 0| 0|+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+15 14 13 12 11 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0This is completely meaningless. At the level you are deciding the endian-ness you are also defining the bit position values. In my view "endian-ness" is a properties of the bit values. Simply labelling them differently in ascending integers is an oxy moron is it not?Is bit position 15 assumed to refer to 32k or 1?Technically USB-A exists in a 4 dimensional space and there are in fact 3 different ways up. To access the third, rotate it one more time in the Z axis.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 01:25:50 pm
content: Quote from: kwass on May 28, 2025, 01:07:17 pmWhich side do you crack an egg on?The narrow end (LE), or the wide end (BE)?That's a problem, isn't it?

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 01:44:14 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on May 28, 2025, 01:25:20 pm"first" only has meaning in serial data transfer (whether bit at a time or byte at a time etc). It has no obvious meaning when referring to a parallel physical structure such as a register or RAM.x86 is little-endian, right? So when you do something with two halves of a value you should do it with the little end first, right?Code:MOV EDI,ECXSTOSW AXROL EAX,16STOSW AXMOV EAX,EAX now contains the same thing as it started with, right?Right.Code:PUSH AXROL EAX,16PUSH AXPOP EAXEAX now contains the same thing as it started with, right?Wrong.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 02:13:09 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 28, 2025, 12:55:00 pmComputer pioneers and academics were widely read, so everybody recognised that reference.Nowadays "reading widely" means consumingbothTackyTokandFarcebook.

author: jpanhalt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 02:25:20 pm
content: Quote from: kwass on May 28, 2025, 01:07:17 pmMy favorite is Yahoo, and not surprisingly, Google AI gives a cleaned up version for the well-known eponymous search engine.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 02:48:55 pm
content: Maybe you can join the "dB" gang.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 02:50:05 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on May 28, 2025, 02:48:55 pmThat thought had crossed my mind!

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 03:49:31 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on May 28, 2025, 01:25:20 pmIt is not meaningless. The binary digits inside the boxes are the standard binary representation of the example number 0x1234, written as we normally write it in Western culture i.e. 0001 0010 0011 0100QuoteBit position 15 represents 1 in big-endian, 32768 in little-endian, as shown in the diagrams.This is important in ISAs that have individual instructions to extract or insert bit fields, or to set / clear / complement / test individual numbered bits.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 03:57:22 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 28, 2025, 03:49:31 pmAnd some processor families have called the most significant bit 31, others called it 0!

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 04:08:45 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on May 28, 2025, 03:57:22 pm??That is PRECISELY what my diagrams were drawn to illustrate. (though for 16 bit values not 32)

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 04:17:32 pm
content: To be fair, this is one of those terms that have acquired conventional meaning, but are intrisically a bit "loose". Like "byte", and its multipliers (KB, MB, etc)."Byte" usually refers to 8-bit words, but not always."KB" usually refers to 1024 bytes, but not always.Mor or less all those terms are context-dependent. You can remove ambiguity by defining them when using them. A bit of a hassle.Recent specs and standards now tend to favor "octet" to refer to 8-bit words, rather than "byte". Likewise, the power-of-two multipliers have been standardized to Ki, Mi, etc to remove ambiguity and make them context-free.Unfortunately, many people seem to whine about terms being ambiguous, and then later whine about attempts to remove ambiguities. TL;DR: you can't please everyone.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 04:56:05 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 28, 2025, 04:08:45 pmYes, you're right.I didn't bother to read the details since I've only seen big/little endian refer to 8/16/32 bit units, normally but not exclusively in conjunction with network protocols and debugger output.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 05:04:59 pm
content: See my detailed response to another thread citing this one, which quotes the original Swift text:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/decibels-are-ridiculous/msg5928910/#msg5928910

author: langwadt
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 06:31:41 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on May 28, 2025, 03:57:22 pmcalling the most significant bit 0 only makes sense for binary fractions

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 07:02:10 pm
content: It's an excellent term, because it's distinguishable; meaning, in today's world, it's also googlable. So good for the same reason as Ethernet. It makes no sense, and it doesn't need to, because it's just a name for a thing, a label. It is however much better name than "CAN" or "TLA", which are ungooglable.I'm of course not a native English speaker or writer, but I have never heard term "endian" in any other meaning in everyday language*. It sounds like totally made-up to me. Which is great, because it breaks free from existing connotations...Quote from: paulca on May 28, 2025, 12:01:23 pm... which you try to forcefully add here, so that you can complain.*) I have heard it's in some book or something, which I haven't read

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 07:14:00 pm
content: Swift'sGulliver's Travelsis an English-language classic (18th Century), not so often read anymore, but the concept of visiting countries with very different sized individuals is very common in animated cartoons and similar media.See:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/decibels-are-ridiculous/msg5928910/#msg5928910

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 07:39:41 pm
content: Quote from: Siwastaja on May 28, 2025, 07:02:10 pmI an not a language nerd, but it's a word constructed exactly like other latin/english words."End" is the 'thing""ian" suffix meaning - "of" or "from"Freudian - of Freud or from Freud.Endian is "Of ends". Big endian - of big ends.So unlike "output" an "input" it even attempts to fit the english language constructs of how words get formed from others with suffixes/prefixes.Endianness, endianality.... I am taking the piss now.I think its a latin-english thing.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 08:47:10 pm
content: Yes, it is a made-up word, based on Swift's amusing idea of a religious conflict.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 08:51:39 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on May 28, 2025, 07:14:00 pmI read it as a kid, but at that age could not understand the fine subtleties of thesatire. Different sized people is merely a small part of it.One which still resonates is the concept of "flappers". Gulliver visited a land where flappers were junior servants to Important People(IP). The key point is that the IP could not communicate with each other unless and until their flappers raised their flaps.That concept is just as valid and visible today as it was in the 18th century.As for Swift's satirical use of endianness, seehttps://www.ling.upenn.edu/courses/Spring_2003/ling538/Lecnotes/ADfn1.htmNote that Danny Cohen's reuse of the concept was entirely apt and directly relevant.

author: UnijunctionTransistor
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 08:55:53 pm
content: One can see that behavior at the top corporate levels.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 09:01:02 pm
content: Quote from: tggzzz on May 28, 2025, 08:51:39 pmSwift was not a children's author, and his writings were very scandalous for a clergyman.Unfortunately, the different-sized people bits were cleaned up for children, while the rest is ignored.Flappers was a wonderful concept: if a person were very, very important, his flappers had flappers.Towards the end of the book, there are very nasty satires of research institutes, which could have been written by recent politicians.Swift's most outrageous work was an 1729 essay "A modest proposal", which is too nasty for me to quote here.Full title: "A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Poor People from Being a Burthen to Their Parents or Country, and for Making Them Beneficial to the Publick"

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 09:04:55 pm
content: Quote from: UnijunctionTransistor on May 28, 2025, 08:55:53 pmYes, and political levels too.Decent corporations employ explicit mechanisms to allow flappers to be circumvented. There several Bill-and-Dave stories and mechanisms, of which MBWA is probably the most widely known.Prince (now King) Charles was known for incognito MBWA.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 28, 2025, 09:13:08 pm
content: Quote from: TimFox on May 28, 2025, 09:01:02 pmJust so. There is a reason it has lasted quarter of amillennium. Decades and lifetimes barely compare.Lilliput and Brobdingnag are the least interesting ddestinations.Memo to self: use Project Gutenberg to put a version on my Kindle. (My Kindle has many things, with none contributing to Bezos' fortune

author: amyk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 12:46:38 am
content: I just remember it asLittle endian being theLogical one - increasing index (whether it be a bit number or memory address), increasing value.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 01:12:05 am
content: Quote from: amyk on May 29, 2025, 12:46:38 amI find it illogical, in that the bytes of numbers and strings are stored in opposite orders in RAM.e.g. 0x12345678 is stored as a number as 78 56 34 12 but converted to a string is 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38Big-endan allows the same comparison function to be used for numbers and strings.But the world has gone little-endian and it's not worth trying to fight it.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 02:08:25 am
content: My, my, turn my back for a second and there's this whole shit-storm brewing over ... endian-ness?OK, so I'm known for having a pretty short fuse when it come to language stupidities and annoyances. But in this case I really can't see what all the fuss is about; seems like a tempest in a teapot to me.That might be because of my innate prejudice, since I grew up as an Intel kiddie (8088) and just kinda accepted "littie-endian" as a minor stumbling block (can't tell you how many times I had to get out paper and pencil and draw out the contents of memory vs. registers), but ultimately just a fact of life.I suppose programming the 68000 might have cured me of that attitude ...

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 05:45:23 am
content: QuoteNonsense. The reference was explicitly called out and explained in the paper that was instrumental in getting the terms applied to computing.https://www.rfc-editor.org/ien/ien137.txt

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 07:57:23 am
content: So 'western' decimal is little endian?I think I have a mental block for this. For me it just comes down to remembering which end they mean.If like decimal read from left to right, starting with the "big" numbers and "ending with the little", then it's little endian right?

author: woody
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 08:53:04 am
content: Wrong, according to duck.ai:Big-endian is a method of storing data in which the most significant byte (the "big end") is placed at the lowest memory address. This means that when reading the data, the most important part comes first, similar to how we read numbers from left to right.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 09:34:28 am
content: This "endianness" discussion gleefully mixes three distinct concepts:Bit order in a sequence, for example in serial communicationsByte orderBit labelingSome people assume "big-endian" and "little-endian" defines all three at once, but that's just a common convention, not a necessity.For example, IBM and others used to label bits in an unsigned integer value as bit \$b\$ having value \$2^{N-b-1}\$, where \$N\$ is the number of bits in that field. In other words, they would label bit 0 as the one whose logical value is the largest.Mathematically, bit \$b\$ having value \$2^b\$ (and for two's complement signed integers, the most significant bit having value \$-2^b\$) is the simplest labeling scheme. You can re-label the bits in any documentation, without changing the meaning or operation of said documentation at all, if you also include implicit ordering definitions (as in "bits are serialized in the order they are labelled" replaced with "bits are serialized with the most significant bit first").In 16-bit and 32-bit microcontrollers, byte order is usually defined by the processor, but bit order can often be defined either most significant or least significant bit first for serial peripherals like SPI bus. Thus, even byte and bit orders are very loosely coupled.The bit labeling issue is one I could rant for hours, because there are so many people who have the misconception that it is somehow tied to bit or byte order or both. It isn't; it is purely a convention that the different bit and byte order people chose, apparently to ensure they were the opposite of the one the competition used. Typical human contrariness, in other words.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 10:08:13 am
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on May 29, 2025, 09:34:28 amAs I wrote about, explicitly mentioning IBM S/360 and POWER and drew diagrams of the numbering options, 21 hours ago:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/programming/littlebig-endian-the-most-stupid-term-ever-conceived/msg5928662/#msg5928662QuoteNot true when you have instructions such as 8051's "ANL C,ACC.7 ;and carry with accum. bit 7" (and many others), PIC's "BCF f,b; BSF f,b; BTFSC f,b; BTFSS f,b" (bit clear/set, skip if bit clear/set).Or M68020's "BFSET <ea>{OFFSET:WIDTH}" the description of which explicitly says "Be careful, this instruction operates from MSB to LSB!!" despite Motorola's documentation labelling the LSB as bit 0https://oldwww.nvg.ntnu.no/amiga/MC680x0_Sections/bfset.HTMLOr similar instructions in M88000 to clr, set, ext, extu a bit field and mak to create a mask for a bit field, all of which take a 10 bit width5:offset5 pair either as a 10 bit literal in the instruction OR as the lowest 10 bits in a register.You CAN NOT wave any of those away as a mere documentation convention, the bit ordering is baked into the hardware -- all the more so with the M88k when you can compute the width:offset pair at runtime.

author: m k
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 11:11:17 am
content: Latin and Arabic numbers,one is from left to right and the other is from right to left, but both are still the same.

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 12:44:52 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on May 29, 2025, 09:34:28 amYup, what I wrote above about myC, is basically "byte-ordering" as "object" property!myC also has operators for bit-manipulation { bit.set, bit.clr, bit.get, ... }, but bit0 isalwaysthe first on the right (bitn-1 ....... bit0).

author: DiTBho
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 12:52:00 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 29, 2025, 10:08:13 amYup, there are some inconsistencies in Motorola's designs.The first time you pick up an 68k SBC to practice onboard assembly, you have to understand these things for a moment.m68k is a nice design, all in all, and the doc is one of the best, it is much easier to read and understand than the intel one.Just, some things are counter-intuitive, or not very coherent.

author: Nominal Animal
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 02:17:30 pm
content: Quote from: brucehoult on May 29, 2025, 10:08:13 amI know of similar bit-level "unpack" and "pack" instructions in other ISAs, yes.In my opinion, such instructions arenotenough of a reason to claim bit labeling is somehow subordinate or tied to bit order. Even if the hardware labels the bits in a specific order, you can document the assembly mnemonic and the parameter values using a different labeling method. For example, bit \$b\$ in "least significant bit is bit zero" is bit \$2^{N-b-1}\$ in "most significant bit is bit zero in an \$N\$-bit unsigned integer". You can say it doesn't look nice, butit is equivalent: the same bits will be affected either way.It is not like the binary instruction encoding has to reflect the logical definition of the instruction, is it? At least I know of several ISAs where many instructions do not.So, IDOstill claim that bit labeling is not inherently coupled to bit order or byte order, even if some architectures do so implicitly. And I do still claim that you can change the bit labeling, although you do need to also redefine the documentation for at least the machine instructions (assembly mnemonics) relying on a specific bit labeling.For example, many ISAs have instructions for counting leading and trailing zero bits. Instead of describingclzandctzas such, you could describe them ascount most significant zero bitsandcount least significant zero bits(these definitions applying regardless of what bit labeling scheme one uses, although which is which depends on how the ISA mnemonic names were chosen), and only mentioning as a side note that the actual mnemonic comes from a specific bit labeling scheme. Similarly for any bit-slicing/offset:width instruction encodings, even if the values involve two subtractions.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 02:48:21 pm
content: Quote from: m k on May 29, 2025, 11:11:17 amWestern numerals (1, 2, 3, etc.) are called “Arabic” to distinguish them from “Roman” (I, II, III, IV, etc.), and they are derived from actual Arabic numerals.I first encountered real Arabic numerals in a hotel in Saudi Arabia. Leaving the elevator, there was a normal sign indicating directions for ranges of room numbers in both systems. It was easy to correlate the two values by inspection.However: in both systems, a three-digit number read left to right. Following normal Arabic word order (right to left) the range (two numbers) was written right to left, while the Western range read left to right.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 06:27:44 pm
content: Quote from: Nominal Animal on May 29, 2025, 09:34:28 amIt's hurting my head. My own fault though, but I was purely thinking bit order.Byte order is another thing again, but before we could get there we need to discuss words. Not words like "endian" either.128, 64, 32, 16, 8, 4, 2,1 - Little endian?By the way. This is not a new thing for me. I did my entire GCSE "Computer Science" exam in Big Endian.The only reason I got a B overall was because I had shown my working out, including what I was using for bit placeholders. Even my 2's compliment was perfectly fine, just backwards.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 06:34:36 pm
content: Quote from: m k on May 29, 2025, 11:11:17 amThe matrix is a lot more complicated than that.Western use Arabic numerals. In today's Arabic world most of them use Hindi numerals, but IIRC their numeric may still be written left to right, while sentences run right to left.It's been quite a while since I had to deal with Arabic locales... thankfully, so this may be off.Anyway. Your point is taken. The "decimal values" of the bits are only really relevant to us.... OR if you want to convert them to other bases.10 is always 10 in all bases.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 29, 2025, 06:41:25 pm
content: See my Reply #43 above.

author: AntiProtonBoy
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 15, 2025, 06:35:31 am
content: Quote from: paulca on May 28, 2025, 12:01:23 pmI realise i'm late the the party, but I want to say there is nothing illogical about it. "End" is always interpreted relative to the pen and paper notation, written from left to right. So the "end" implies the last digit of a binary number on the right. Litte endian would use notation such that the most significant digit is written on the left and the least significant bit is written on the right, i.e. at the "end" of the binary digit sequence (much like how we use decimal notation on pen and paper). Big endian would have a sequence such that the most significant bit on the right.

author: m k
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 17, 2025, 06:36:50 pm
content: Actually it's how processors are fetching data from memory.Or what end is peeking out first.Or Latin vs. Arabic numbers.Latin number is from left to right and MSD first.Arabic number is from right to left and LSD first.So Arabic number is logical, for example number 3 is always that, if 4 is added beside it 3 is still 3.So calculation can start when first digit is fetched.So it defines how to treat beginning and end, but it doesn't define very accurately where those beginning and end actually are.So for memory access little endianness ends big, but first comes out little, like from a morning egg.

author: TimFox
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 17, 2025, 06:51:53 pm
content: Quote from: m k on June 17, 2025, 06:36:50 pmAs I pointed out above, in Arabia the traditional Arabic numerals (similar to the Western “Arabic” numerals derived from them that replaced Roman numerals) are placed within multi-digit numbers in the same order used in the West.However, I saw Arabic and Westernword orderused with sequences in Saudi Arabia.Specifically, Western “{ABC} — {XYZ}” and Arabic “{XYZ} — {ABC}” for directions to hotel rooms posted at the elevator, where the digit symbols were Western “Arabic” and Arabic “Arabic”, respectively.To clarify, by {ABC} and {XYZ}, I mean three-digit positive integers (room numbers), where {ABC} < {XYZ}, and the digits are Western or Arabic, as specified.