Invisible schrieb:
> Captain Jack wrote:
> 
>> I remember having written a game on a portable Unix machine (with a 
>> Motorala 68010 processor) and being amazed at what happened with my 
>> save files when I moved to my first DOS machine (with an 80386 
>> processor); I hadn't ever had to deal with byte order before that. In 
>> that case, the save data was relatively small, so I re-wrote it to 
>> save in ASCII printable characters, which solved that problem. :) 
> 
> It still makes me sad that Intel chose to store bytes in the wrong order 
> all those years ago...

Define "wrong" in this context...

As a matter of fact, the only situation where byte ordering can be 
defined as "right" or "wrong" with irrefutable arguments is in serial 
transmission, dependent on the native bit ordering of the physical 
layer: If the physical layer sends each byte starting with the least 
significant bit, then consistency would demand to send multi-byte values 
starting with the least significant byte, so that all in all the least 
significant bit of the multi-byte value is sent first; on the other 
hand, if the physical layer transmits the most significant bit of each 
byte first, the same reasoning would mandate sending the most 
significant byte first. There are other arguments pro and contra both 
little and big endian, but none as compelling as serial transmission.

It so happens that Intel format is actually doing it "right" in this 
respect: AFAIK two of the most important serial interfaces - RS232 and 
Ethernet - both transmit each byte starting with the least significant 
bit first.

So in this sense the "network byte ordering" used for multy-octet data 
in most Internet standards is actually a crappy convention, as the bits 
of multi-byte data will be transmitted in an inconsistent order.


BTW, Intel is not the only company that preferred little-endian convention.

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