nanogui: Thread: Big Endian vs. Little Endian

Will the architecture of nano gui allow for the case where the host system and
the memory of the graphic device are of different endianess (sp) ? 

I'm fighting this case now with XF86_FBDev.  My Little Endian x86 machine is
using a graphic device that can only view its memory as Big Endian.  My Frame
Buffer driver handles this easily, but trying to get X11 to recognize this
weird arrangement is a _real_ pain.

Jim

: Will the architecture of nano gui allow for the case where the host system and
: the memory of the graphic device are of different endianess (sp) ? 
: 
Microwindows isn't currently written with the idea to run on systems where
the client is a different machine than the server.  For this, use X.  However,
currently the source is almost portable for machines that are big-endian. (that is,
the graphics memory and client)

To answer your question:  No, the Nano-X protocol is completely non-portable
across cross-endian systems.  It won't work as currently written.  This is the
case for the Nano-X API.  The Microwindows API isn't even client/server yet,
and I was hoping to use a more standard marshalling protocol for it, like 
perhaps XDR, or perhaps one slightly more modern, that doesn't require
flipping if the machines are the same.  So, I think the answer is no, it doesn't handle it.



: I'm fighting this case now with XF86_FBDev.  My Little Endian x86 machine is
: using a graphic device that can only view its memory as Big Endian.  My Frame
: Buffer driver handles this easily, but trying to get X11 to recognize this
: weird arrangement is a _real_ pain.

Now, there's nothing preventing you from hacking a new screen driver for
Microwindows that makes this work.  None of the actual framebuffer contents are
actually passed across to the client, except that returned by ReadPixel().

Greg