Endianness does not apply to byte

If it's switchable, which is the "natural" endiness?

Nope. They come from India. I've just read in an Indian guy resume about Big-Indian and Little-Indian

Since it's an architectural property (user model), it depends on the switch.

The endianness that's compatible with existing software. The little-endian mode in many PowerPCs is a bit strange, since it just manipulates address bits, which is a bit confusing. Ie, it's more of a data conversion convenience than an inherent state of operation. So big-endian is thus the natural ordering. Later processors support "true little-endian", but unless there's a good reason to use it, big-endian ends up the default for compatiblity.

I suspect that CPUs that could work either way from the very first model wouldn't have a "natural" endianness.

-- Darin Johnson