Appeal No. 1999-0041
Application 08/475,669
The appellants’ invention enhances a conventional bi-
endian computer to include mixed-endian mechanisms that allow
the computer to change its endian mode dynamically. The
mixed-endian computer can change its endian mode on a task by
task basis if necessary. The mechanisms automatically format
data in the scheme expected by the running task, either big
endian or little endian. The mechanisms also format big and
little endian instructions such that they can execute on the
same computer. The mechanisms also include two memory
management mechanisms, a single aliased memory management
mechanism and a double aliased memory management mechanism.
Each memory management mechanism provides cross-endian data
sharing.
Claims 2 and 19, which are representative for our
purposes, follow:
2. A computer system, said computer system
comprising:
a conventional bi-endian processor, said
processor being used to execute a plurality of
tasks, said tasks including big endian tasks and
little endian tasks;
3
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