Re: [OT] The Ramifications of Little-Endian Packed Decimal

From: Niels Jørgen Kruse (nj_kruse_at_get2net.dk)
Date: 02/29/04 

Date: Sun, 29 Feb 2004 18:21:36 +0100

I artiklen <ce9d692b.0402281827.414bcc7a@posting.google.com> ,
old_systems_guy@yahoo.com (John Mashey) skrev:

> Andrew Reilly <andrew@gurney.reilly.home> wrote in message
> news:<pan.2003.08.20.23.49.20.467962@gurney.reilly.home>...
>> On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 13:51:18 +0000, jsavard wrote:
>> > So, after I considered this - after seeing the cataclysmic results of
>> > changing the bit while executing code whose interpretation is affected by
>> > it, on a system that implements endianness-change by means of bit munging
>> > - I realized there was _another_ alternative.
>> >
>> > Define endianness in the *segment registers*, so that you can change the
>> > data segment from big-endian to little-endian while leaving the code
>> > segment alone!

Motorolas e500 core picks endianness on a page by page base.
(Don't know what it is for.)

[big snip]

> 7) During the early 1990s, when Windows NT was really getting going, Microsoft
> was very clear: there would NEVER be an NT port to a BE CPU. I believe that
> this may have induced others to add LE compatibility to BE CPUs, "just in
> case."

The PPC970 doesn't have a little-endian mode (only opposite endian versions
of a few instructions).

<http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=14407>
[Says that the Xbox2 SDK runs a custom Windows NT Kernel on a PowerMac G5.]

They could be wrong of course. 

--
Mvh./Regards,    Niels Jørgen Kruse,    Vanløse, Denmark

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