Methods and apparatus for handling and storing bi-endian words in a floating-point processor

Apparatus for handling and storing floating-point numbers comprising:

• a computer comprising a floating-point computation unit, a memory and floating-point registers;
• means for holding floating-point numbers in said floating-point registers in a register format wherein each of said floating-point numbers includes a sign, an exponent and a significand, each of said floating-point numbers in said register format having more bytes than a word in said memory;
• means, responsive to a first state of an endian control bit, for storing a floating-point number in first and second consecutive memory words in big endian format such that said sign and said exponent are entirely contained in said first memory word and said significand is entirely contained in said second memory word;
• and
• means, responsive to a second state of the endian control bit, for storing a floating-point number in said first and second consecutive memory words in little endian format such that said significand is entirely contained in said first memory word and said sign and said exponent are entirely contained in said second memory word.