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Article #12485Re: A theory for Big & Little Endian's origin
From: Robert Firth
Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1993 15:05
Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1993 15:05
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In article <C0JE18.8Mp@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> hrubin@pop.stat.purdue.edu (Herman Rubin) writes: >Also, when Hebrew texts use the traditional representation of numbers >by Hebrew letters, it is definitely Big Endian. To my knowledge, this >seems to be universal To my knowledge too. At least, I can confirm that Egyptian, Babylonian, Greek, Roman and Mayan numbers were big-endian. One interesting exception is the mediaeval conceit of embedding a roman number in a name or phrase, which of course works because the roman numerals aren't positional. For example, the phrase et in arcadia ego encodes the number DCII, or 602. You'll find some mediaeval buildings dated in this manner.
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Newsgroups: comp.arch Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!cis.ohio-state.edu!news.sei.cmu.edu!firth From: firth@sei.cmu.edu (Robert Firth) Subject: Re: A theory for Big & Little Endian's origin Message-ID: <1993Jan8.100549.28792@sei.cmu.edu> Sender: netnews@sei.cmu.edu (Netnews) Organization: Software Engineering Institute References: <1iig7aINNtc@spim.mti.sgi.com> <1iinltINNi0l@darkstar.UCSC.EDU> <C0JE18.8Mp@mentor.cc.purdue.edu> Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 10:05:49 EST Lines: 17