> can someone please define "big endian" and "little > endian" for me, i understand that some machines have high byte first > and small byte last, and some are the other way around, which of these > are which when using the "endian" terminology? You want to see the early-arpanet document "IEN137 - On Holy Wars and a Plea for Peace"; I'm pretty sure that's the first instance of tying the "endian" term to computer architecture. BillW -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.