Acolyte of the Butterfly
Posts: 105 from 2003/2/10
From: Lightning capi...
Quote:Andreas_Wolf wrote:
> I think i got it now. ARM chips are able to load and process big
> endian data, while addressing und such stuff are always little endian.
Don't jump to conclusions about ARM's endianess(es)
I just wanted to point out that there's a difference between just "endianess" and "true endianess".
Given the existence of a (non-official) big-endian ARM (
ARMeb) port of Debian there must be true bi-endian ARMs able to operate in true big-endian mode.
Hint: Don't believe everything Neko is telling. He is not only wrong about ARM generally being non-true big-endian but also about Power Architecture generally being non-true little-endian.
The way to look at it is this way: ARM replaced multiple BE architectures in the past, from the 6502 to the 68k itself, in multiple machines, all with minimal performance impact. See the Palm for prime example. Palm's OS is, frankly, even simpler than MorphOS or the Amigas OS, yet it did the transistion pretty smoothly, wouldn't you agree, and during a period with far weaker CPU's than we have today.
And what you you mean Power being non-true little-endian? **eyes his OS/2 for PPC CD, pure LE PPC baby!**
Nate Downes
Genesi SARL
