From owner-freebsd-alpha Thu Aug 27 15:21:22 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id PAA14354 for freebsd-alpha-outgoing; Thu, 27 Aug 1998 15:21:22 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from lestat.nas.nasa.gov (lestat.nas.nasa.gov [129.99.50.29]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id PAA14232 for ; Thu, 27 Aug 1998 15:20:58 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from thorpej@lestat.nas.nasa.gov) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by lestat.nas.nasa.gov (8.8.8/8.6.12) with SMTP id PAA00731; Thu, 27 Aug 1998 15:01:24 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <199808272201.PAA00731@lestat.nas.nasa.gov> X-Authentication-Warning: lestat.nas.nasa.gov: localhost [127.0.0.1] didn't use HELO protocol To: Warner Losh Cc: Roger Hardiman , freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: FreeBSD Alpha. Which endian? Reply-To: Jason Thorpe From: Jason Thorpe Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1998 15:01:23 -0700 Sender: owner-freebsd-alpha@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org On Thu, 27 Aug 1998 13:59:04 -0600 Warner Losh wrote: > No. AFAIK, the alpha has never supported this. The only processor > family on the planet that did this was the MIPS family, and some of > its successors. Some of them even did this at run time (rather than > at board design time[**]), but no operating system seems to have > successfully taken advantage of this[*]. The Alpha can be wired big-endian, but it requires custom PALcode, etc. The Cray T3 was like this. PowerPCs are also bi-endian, run-time switchable. The PA-RISC (at least the version in those cute little HP 9000/712s) is also bi-endian. Jason R. Thorpe thorpej@nas.nasa.gov NASA Ames Research Center Home: +1 408 866 1912 NAS: M/S 258-5 Work: +1 650 604 0935 Moffett Field, CA 94035 Pager: +1 650 940 5942 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-alpha" in the body of the message