Re: Debian for SuperH bootstrapping

[NIIBE Yutaka <gniibe@m17n.org>]

Matt Taggart wrote:
> What do you think about the big endian targets? Is there demand for those? I 
> think the Debian ftp-masters will push back on creating 4 new architectures, 
> but sh3 and sh4 seem to make sense.

IMO, there is _not_ much demand for big endian.  I mean, while it
makes sense to let dpkg (or other tools) sh3eb, sh4eb enabled, I don't
think there is actual users for big endian system.  The evaluation
boards has setting of endian-ness, that's true, but I don't know any
real products with big endian.  HP, SEGA, Hitachi, and Compaq, all
products are little endian.

Here's a additional explanation.

SuperH series (SH in short) started with SH-1 series.  For SH-1 and
SH-2, its major usage was big endian.

SH-3 came, its customer is Microsoft (WindowsCE).  SH-4 came, its
customer is SEGA (Dreamcast).  From SH-3 and SH-4, little endian is
majority.  Actually, some feature is only available with little endian
setting (such as PCMCIA bus support).

So, some people who migrated from SH-1/SH-2 may stick big endian but
it's rare case.

Err... however, it seems for me that FPU of SH-4 is designed for big
endian system.

Well, here in oriental world, there is famous saying of Mao:
	"Human being is the existence of contradiction."

Why not the processor? ;-)
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