### A good answer might be:

The big end is the byte that contains 0x12. The bit pattern in it is:

0001 0010

# Byte Order of MIPS and SPIM

Within a byte, for all processors, bit 7 is the most signficant bit. So the big end byte looks the same for both byte orderings. Usually in printed material this bit is shown at the left, as in `00010010`. Note: except when discussing byte ordering, the "big end" byte is called the "high-order byte" or the "most significant byte".

The MIPS processor chip can be set up in hardware to use either byte ordering. A computer system designer makes whatever choice best fits the rest of the components in the computer system. The SPIM simulator uses the byte ordering of the computer it is running on.

- Intel 80x86: little-endian.
- Macintosh: big-endian.

The examples in these notes were done on a Windows/Intel computer. If you are using a Macintosh there will be occasional differences.

### QUESTION 4:

Here is a bit pattern, with the most significant bits written on the left (as is usual in print): `0xFF00AA11`. Copy the bytes to memory using big endian and little endian orders:

Little Endian
Address | Contents
--- | ---
4003 |
4002 |
4001 |
4000 |
Big Endian
Address | Contents
--- | ---
4003 |
4002 |
4001 |
4000 |