Re: endian issues (mips)

[job bogan <job@piquin.uchicago.edu>]

Your message dated: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 23:37:12 MST
>
>On Thu, 3 Dec 1998, job bogan wrote:
>
>> 
>> so, i was thinking about requesting a mips area in the ftp hierarchy,
>> but...  mips cpus have ability to run in little or big endian
>> modes. (perhaps vax endian too??)  as well, we have at least 3 classes
>> of mips machines we could be running on - cobalt cube, sgis and
>> nt/pc'ish things (magnums and such).
>
>Are you sure this is not selectable in software during boot? I think it
>was PPC or some such that had a mode bit for edianness.

mips can run little or big.  if i remember right:

sgi workstaions - big endian
pc clone (ARC)  - little
cobalt cube/raq - little

you can switch modes.  but you will hit problems if you need to do
anything with the prom/firmware or deal with the volume header (sgi
spec).  (and i think some parts of the hw are hardwired for the endian
setup.)

as well, i think we have to deal with it since the cobalt cubes are
little endian (ship with redhat) and irix bins are big endian.  unless
we can get the kernel to switch dynamicly for the binary on hand...
now, that would be cool, but a technical pain in the rear if possible at
all.

job