Re: Byte Addressability And Beyond

On Wed, 08 May 2024 20:50:53 -0600, John Savard
<quadibloc@servername.invalid> wrote:

On Wed, 8 May 2024 05:54:50 -0000 (UTC), Lawrence D'Oliveiro
<ldo@nz.invalid> wrote:
>

On Tue, 07 May 2024 22:01:36 -0600, John Savard wrote:
>

But the third item is character stirings, used in input and output to
represent numbers. They should be the same as packed decimal to make
conversion between the two simpler.

>
No, because character string conversion is subject to localization issues.

>
I agree that little-endian computers make sense for people whose
native language is Hebrew or Arabic.

Still, I get your point. My thinking is stuck in the days of card
readers and line printers. Yes, one called a subroutine to print
numbers, but what it did was convert them to the format used in North
America and the United Kingdom, in accordance with any parameters in
the call that were hard-coded into the program.

The idea of programs as applications, to be distributed far and wide,
to people with computers of their own, where the operating system
could impose localization options on the display of numbers that
programs would usually allow themselves to accept... the situation
with newfangled operating systems like Microsoft Windows... is still
one that is only gradually beginning to dawn on me.

I do suspect, though, that programs like, say, dBase II, which store
numbers in files internally as character strings, don't vary that
format according to localization. Some binary to string conversions go
through the localization mechanisms, but not all of them, and so
string forms are _not_ wholly irrelevant.

An embedded processor in, say, a digital voltmeter... is not going to
have a localization layer to contend with. The makers of digital
voltmeters will find other ways of addressing international markets.

John Savard