IBM Says it Has Endian Solution for Monterey

Computergram International, April 8, 1999

IBM Corp claims that it has solved the endian issue with the 64- bit Monterey uber-Unix operating system it is developing with Santa Cruz Operations and others. Tikiri Wanduragala, Netfinity division manager in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) says that Austin, Texas-based team working on Monterey have "figured out a way of making an endian neutral system." However, Wanduragala was tight-lipped about how the team had achieved this feat, saying only that the software development kit's role in the process was "very important".

Big or little endian refers to the way in which CPUs read data, different processors read data from different 'sides'. For instance, RISC-based processors are big endian, while some Intel designs are little endian.