Article View: comp.arch
Article #12486Turing & Big/Little Ends
From: Chip Elliott
Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1993 15:54
Date: Fri, 08 Jan 1993 15:54
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Despite some comments, numbers are not "universally" written
big endian.
Our favorite counter example, Alan Turing, would habitually
write numbers left-to-write or vice versa, often in the course
of the same talk. Thus when he wrote "21" on the board it might
mean twenty-one or it might mean twelve.
He thought endian-ness was a trivial detail and was surprised
that anyone would be confused by his using whatever seemed
more natural to the problem at hand.
(And then there are the odd "five-and-twenty" constructions
which I suppose happen in many languages. Vocal, yes, but they
sometimes get written down this way.)
---
Chip Elliott UUCP: {backbone}!bbn!celliott
BBN Systems and Technologies INTERNET: celliott@bbn.com
Cambridge, MA 02238
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Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!gatech!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!agate!ames!olivea!news.bbn.com!news.bbn.com!news From: celliott@BBN.COM (Chip Elliott) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Turing & Big/Little Ends Message-ID: <lkr8t7INNh7j@news.bbn.com> Date: 8 Jan 93 15:54:15 GMT Reply-To: celliott@BBN.COM (Chip Elliott) Organization: Bolt Beranek and Newman Inc., Cambridge MA Lines: 22 NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com