DDCA Ch6 - Part 20: Big-Endian and Little-Endian Memory

Endianness Explained

In this section, the concept of endianness is discussed, focusing on little endian and big endian byte orders within a word.

Endianness in Computing

• Memory is byte-addressed, leading to the question of how bytes within a word are numbered.

• Little endian has byte zero as the least significant, while big endian has byte zero as the most significant within a word.

• Both little and big endian have the same word addresses but differ in byte order within the word.

• Computer architects debated over which endianness was correct; some favored big endian while others preferred little endian.

• The term "Indian-ness" was coined by Danny Cohen, referencing warring tribes in Gulliver's Travels to describe the debate between little and big endian systems.

Data Sharing and Endianness